Year: 2016

And God Laughs

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Tony Perkins, conservative, bigot, and religious hypocrite, has said on numerous occasions that God sends natural disasters to punish us for not hating on the gay.

Guess whose home was just flooded in an act of God.

Using Mr. Perkin’s logic, it clearly means that he is closeted, because otherwise, his home would not have been flooded:

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, an organization labeled an anti-LGBT hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, was left homeless by the destructive flooding that has ravaged southern Louisiana this week, killing 11 people and destroying an estimated 40,000 homes.

Perkins, who has claimed that God uses natural disasters such as hurricanes and flooding to punish people for sinning (in particular homosexuals and their supporters), had his own home destroyed by the Lord Almighty. The hate group leader says he was forced to escape his destroyed home by canoe, reports JMG.

Perkins called into his own radio show to talk about the disaster of “biblical proportions” that, according to Perkins, will force his family to live in a camper for the six months it will take to rebuild his home.

I don’t claim to be a pious man, or a spiritual man, or even a good man, so I can freely admit that this development amuses the hell out of me, particularly since this Elmer Gantry wannabe denies anthropogenic climate change, which was the proximate cause of the warming.

Ka Ching!

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Guess what, despite the fact that the US spends more on defense than the next 7 nations, we still need to flush even more money down the toilet to combat coming Russian and Chinese technological superiority:

The fight against the Islamic State may get the headlines. But it’s the military threats from Russia and China that most worry top Pentagon officials — and are driving a new arms race to deter these great-power rivals.

This question of how to deal with Russian and Chinese military advances has gotten almost no attention in the 2016 presidential campaign. But it deserves a careful look. The programs begun in the waning days of the Obama administration could potentially change the face of warfare, in the United States’ favor, but they would require political support and new spending by the next president.

A drive to build exotic versions of conventional weapons may sound crazy in a world that already has too much military conflict. But advocates argue that strengthening U.S. conventional forces might be the only way to avoid escalation to nuclear weapons if war with Moscow or Beijing began.

Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work argued for the new deterrence strategy in a presentation this month to the bipartisan Aspen Strategy Group, amplifying comments he made to me in an interview in February. The approach, awkwardly named the “third offset strategy,” would leverage the United States’ technological superiority by creating weapons that could complicate attack planning by an adversary.

The premise is that as Russia and China modernize their militaries, the United States must exploit its lead in high-tech warfare. In the world envisioned by Pentagon planners, the United States could field an array of drones in the sky, unmanned submarines beneath the seas and advanced systems on the ground that could overwhelm an adversary’s battle-management networks. Like the two previous “offsets,” battlefield nuclear weapons in the 1950s and precise conventional weapons in the 1970s, this one would seek to restore lost U.S. military dominance.

Those lucrative retirement gigs for Generals don’t pay for themselves.

The US military is looking at reducing the number of troops, to pay for the bling, which is exactly the wrong thing to do.

The markedly inferior Grumman F4F Wildcat achieved a 6.9:1 kill ratio over the Mitsubishi A6M Zero, an aircraft that could literally fly rings around it.

They did so because of superior tactics, superior situational awareness (better radar and radios), and a training regime that produced better trained pilots more quickly.

Technological superiority does not necessarily win wars.  Ask a Tiger tank commander in WWII about that.

The Nefarious Ammosexual Agenda Forces Its Way into Our Houses of Worship

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In Oregon, a girl’s softball team in Lake Oswego raffled off an AR-15 to fund a team trip.*

A pastor there did not like this, and when he found that tickets were already sold, he bought a large number, in the hopes of getting the weapon, and destroying it.

Well, he won the raffle/rifle, and announced his plans, and the gun fondler crowd started issuing death threats and demanding his prosecution:

The Rev. Jeremy Lucas brought an olive branch to a gun fight recently, hoping for a mellow outcome. It began when he won a semi-automatic rifle in a local raffle, then revealed his plan to destroy it and was mostly congratulated for his stand.

But the 44-year-old Episcopal priest’s token attempt to take another gun off the streets did little to keep the peace. In response to his gesture, Lucas got threats and demands for his arrest.

………

Lucas grew up in Alabama owning and shooting guns. But he sees the AR-15, America’s most popular rifle, as a danger to society. It is one of the weapons of choice among today’s mass shooters, from Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012 to the shooting last month of four teens, three fatally, by another teen near Seattle.

………

When news about his win and plans to destroy the gun began to spread, Lucas got Facebook thank-yous from relatives of some of the Sandy Hook victims and encouragement from hundreds of others.

Donors replenished the $3,000 he’d used from the church coffers and then some. Bishop Michael J. Hanley, head of the Episcopal Diocese of Oregon, sent his huzzas as well. “It was a wonderful thing and actually filled me with a certain amount of glee that he could pull it off,” Hanley said in a statement. “Probably more of us need to act in this way, jumping into the unknown consequences of doing good deeds.”

But not everyone saw it that way.

Some unhappy commentators suggested Lucas had violated Oregon’s new gun law by failing to have a background check conducted on a parishioner to whom he’d given the weapon for safekeeping.

Then there were the “critics and trolls” on social media and on news websites, Lucas wrote on his blog, “lobbing their hate and vitriol.”

There are lots of responsible gun owners out there, and then there is the Ammosexual contingent, who shouldn’t be trusted with a butter knife.

*I know what you are thinking, “In Oregon, you must be kidding?” That’s because you don’t know that Oregon in the 1920s was the most KKK dominated state in the nation.†
†Oregon’s original constitution literally banned black people from the territory.

Factoid of the Day

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I always knew the people who you know are the ones most likely to kill you.

I did not know this: (BTW, kickass discussion of statistics of incomplete data here)

Americans are afraid of many threats to their lives – serial killers, crazed gunmen, gang bangers, and above all terrorists – but these threats are surprisingly unlikely. Approximately three-quarters of all homicide victims in America are killed by someone they know. And the real threat from strangers is quite different from what most fear: one-third of all Americans killed by strangers are killed by police.

Our law enforcement system is broken.

OK, that bit I knew.

From Libertarian Ubermensch to Sucking at the Taxpayer’s Tit

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The city of Arlington Virginia is looking at paying Uber to take people to metro stops:

Arlington County is looking to partner with transportation providers such as Uber and Lyft to offer residents rides from more remote residential areas of the county where bus service to Metro stations is limited.

The on-demand option would replace some fixed bus service in north Arlington.

“What we would be supporting is picking up residents in their neighborhood and taking them to one or two designated stops, most likely a transit station,” said Marti Reinfeld, the county’s interim transit bureau chief. “The county will subsidize that at some level.”

It could take a couple of years before such a program launches, but county transportation officials say they want to do so as soon as possible. Arlington joins a growing number of U.S. transit agencies that are exploring partnerships with the popular app-based companies to leverage their success and improve service to residents.

I guess that Uber is changing its business plan:  Instead of just abusing and endangering drivers and passengers, they will now also suck up taxpayer money that would otherwise go to providing decent mass transit.

This has “fail” written all over it.

Sauce for the Gander

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After decades of merrily hacking into other people’s computers and snooping on people’s emails, it appears that the NSA has been hacked.

A group of hackers are trying to auction off malware that the spy organization has been using to spy on the rest of us:

A mysterious online group calling itself “The Shadow Brokers” is claiming to have penetrated the National Security Agency, stolen some of its malware, and is auctioning off the files to the highest bidder.

The authenticity of the files cannot be confirmed but appear to be legitimate, according to security researchers who have studied their content. Their release comes on the heels of a series of disclosures of emails and documents belonging mostly to Democratic officials, but also to Republicans. Security researchers believe those breaches were perpetrated by agents thought to be acting on behalf of Moscow.

The NSA did not answer Foreign Policy’s questions about the alleged breach on Monday. But if someone has managed to penetrate the American signals intelligence agency and post its code online for the world to see — and purchase — it would constitute a historic black eye for the agency.

………

The files posted over the weekend include two sets of files. The hackers have made one set available for free. The other remains encrypted and is the subject of an online auction, payable in bitcoin, the cryptocurrency. That set includes, according to the so-called Shadow Brokers, “the best files.” If they receive at least 1 million bitcoin — the equivalent of at least $550 million — they will post more documents and make them available for free.

The set of files available for free contains a series of tools for penetrating network gear made by Cisco, Juniper, and other major firms. Targeting such gear, which includes things like routers and firewalls, is a known tactic of Western intelligence agencies like the NSA, and was documented in the Edward Snowden files. Some code words referenced in the material Monday — BANANAGLEE and JETPLOW — match those that have appeared in documents leaked by Snowden. Security researchers analyzing the code posted Monday say it is functional and includes computer codes for carrying out espionage.

If this hack is real, my guess is that they got in through backdoors that the NSA itself insisted on.

I Cannot Imagine Any of My Elected Officials Doing This

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While riding in a crowded train on a three hour trip to debate with his opponent for Labour leadership, Jeremy Corbyn spent 3 hours sitting on the floor rather than upgrading to first class:

Spending a busy train journey without a seat, crushed up against other commuters in the aisle, or crouched uncomfortably in the luggage compartment is an all-too-common experience for many. But you don’t expect to spot the leader of the opposition on the floor of a train on your way to work.

Jeremy Corbyn, famed for standing up for his principles, sat down for them last week, along with 20 other seatless commuters on a three-hour train journey from London to Newcastle.

In a video shot as he was on his way to debate with Owen Smith in the Labour leadership hustings in Gateshead, Corbyn is seen sitting on the floor of the train, a coffee and brown paper bag at his feet, reading Private Eye. The freelance filmmaker Yannis Mendez, who has been following Corbyn and volunteers for his campaign, filmed the footage.

From his spot on the floor, which he chose rather than upgrading to first class, Corbyn turns to the camera and says: “This is a problem that many passengers face every day, commuters and long-distance travellers. Today this train is completely ram-packed. The staff are absolutely brilliant, working really hard to help everybody.

“The reality is there are not enough trains, we need more of them – and they’re also incredibly expensive.” He said the whole experience was a good case for public ownership.

Later, Corbyn said: “Is it fair that I should upgrade my ticket whilst others who might not be able to afford such a luxury should have to sit on the floor? It’s their money I would be spending after all.”

I cannot for the life of me imagine why the voters are choosing him over the posh clueless assholes from the Parliamentary Labour Party.

Somehow, the geniuses who lost the last two elections, and have converted Scotland from a Labour fortress to Terra Incognita, think that Corbyn is going to lose them an election.

I don’t know whether or not  Corbyn will win the next election, but I do know that the Labour establishment will find a way to lose.

Well, Our Adventure in Syria is Working So Well

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In addition to flying missions from the Khmeimim Air Base in Latakia, Russia is now flying missions from against Isis from Syria as well:

Russian warplanes on Tuesday flew out from an Iranian air base to conduct strikes against jihadist groups in war-torn Syria, the defense ministry in Moscow said.

The raids are the first Russia has reported carrying out from a base in Iran since the Kremlin launched its Syrian bombing campaign in support of long-time ally Bashar Assad last September.

“On August 16 Tu-22M3 long-range bombers and Su-34 frontline bombers, flying with a full bomb load from the Hamedan air base (Islamic Republic of Iran), conducted a group air strike against targets of the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist groups in the provinces of Aleppo, Deir Ezzor and Idlib,” the ministry said in a statement.

The strikes resulted in the destruction of “five large warehouses with weapons, ammunition and fuel” and jihadist training camps near Aleppo, Deir Ezzor, the village of Saraqeb in the Idlib region and Al-Bab, an IS-held town in Aleppo province, the statement said.

First, this means that Iran and Russia military ties have become significantly tighter.

What this also means is that Iraq allowed their aircraft to transit their airspace, which also says something about the direction of that nation’s foreign policy.

Yeah, that whole Syrian adventure of ours is bearing such wonderful fruit.

Read Matt Taibbi

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His essay on the hacktacular nature of today’s press. Here is the start:

Years ago, when I was an exchange student in the Soviet Union, a Russian friend explained how he got his news.

“For news about Russia, Radio Liberty,” he said. “For news about America, Soviet newspapers.” He smiled. “Countries lie about themselves, tell truth about others.”

American media consumers are fast approaching the same absurd binary reality. We now have one set of news outlets that gives us the bad news about Democrats, and another set of news outlets bravely dedicated to reporting the whole truth about Republicans.

Like the old adage about quarterbacks – if you think you have two good ones, you probably have none – this basically means we have no credible news media left. Apart from a few brave islands of resistance, virtually all the major news organizations are now fully in the tank for one side or the other.

Go read the rest.

The 38 Minute Debate

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Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Tim Canova finally had a debate ……… for about 38 minutes ……… on a Sunday morning.

Needless to say, it it got kind of heated, which is not surprising.

When you have what amounts to just ½ a debate, you don’t have the time to explore policy differences:

Hostility oozed from South Florida TV screens Sunday morning as Tim Canova and Debbie Wasserman Schultz faced off in their first, and likely only, debate before the Aug. 30 Democratic congressional primary.

Incumbent Wasserman Schultz and challenger Canova clashed on a handful of issues, most notably on Israel and Social Security, which are both important in the Broward/Miami-Dade County 23rd Congressional District, home to a large Jewish community and to many seniors.

Even sharper exchanges concerned charges about judgment, temperament and commitment to South Florida. The two repeatedly expressed exasperation with each other, often seeking to interrupt the other to make a point.

I watched a bit of it at the site, but I cannot stand listening to DWS.

I don’t think that it will make much of a difference.

It was at a time when no one tuned in, and it was too short, which was what Wasserman Schultz wanted.

Comedy Central Goes Full “Unblackening”

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They just canceled Larry Wilmore’s show:

For almost a decade, the combination of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert made Comedy Central destination viewing for fans of late-night comedy and barbed political commentary.

But over the last 12 months, the post-Stewart and post-Colbert era has not been as easy for the network.

On Monday, Comedy Central announced that it was canceling “The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore” because of falling ratings and a distinct lack of buzz.

The final episode of Mr. Wilmore’s 11:30 p.m. show — the slot formerly occupied by Mr. Colbert before he left for CBS — will be Thursday.

Kent Alterman, Comedy Central’s president, said he informed Mr. Wilmore of the news late last week. The move, Mr. Alterman said in an interview, was made for a simple reason: The show “hasn’t resonated.”

“Even though we’ve given it a year and a half, we’ve been hoping against hope that it would start to click with our audience, but it hasn’t happened, and we haven’t seen evidence of it happening,” Mr. Alterman said.

The awkward timing of the cancellation, just 12 weeks before the presidential election, ultimately came down to a contract, Mr. Alterman said. Mr. Wilmore’s deal, along with those of several of the show’s other staff members, was set to expire in a few weeks and the network had to decide now whether to renew or cancel.
Continue reading the main story

For the time being, Comedy Central’s 12 a.m. show, “@midnight,” will replace “The Nightly Show” at 11:30 p.m. “The Daily Show” with Trevor Noah remains at 11 p.m. Mr. Alterman said he hoped to name a full-time replacement for “The Nightly Show” sometime next year.

………

“The Nightly Show” has been known for a signature segment, “Keep It 100,” (slang for telling the truth, no matter the consequences) and for Mr. Wilmore’s often stinging commentary on race and this year’s election. (He called the election to find Barack Obama’s successor “The Unblackening.”) Though the late-show genre remains heavy on easygoing laughter, any one episode of “The Nightly Show” could occasionally go for prolonged stretches without a single joke, something that intrigued some critics but failed to attract a broader audience.

“I’m really grateful to Comedy Central, Jon Stewart and our fans to have had this opportunity,” Mr. Wilmore said in a statement. “But I’m also saddened and surprised we won’t be covering this crazy election or ‘The Unblackening’ as we’ve coined it. And keeping it 100, I guess I hadn’t counted on ‘The Unblackening’ happening to my time slot as well.”

It wasn’t getting the demographic that the network wanted, White Bros, because it attempted a meaningful dialogue on race, which is about as welcome by that demo as a turd in a punch bowl.

I’m bummed.

My Next Computer is not Going to Be Windows 10

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The latest Microsoft operating system is a privacy horror show:

By default, Microsoft gets to see your location, keystrokes and browser history — and listen to your microphone, and some of that stuff is shared with “trusted [by Microsoft, not by you] partners.”

You can turn this all off, of course, by digging through screen after screen of “privacy” dashboards, navigating the welter of tickboxes that serve the same purposes as all those clean, ration-seeming lines on the craps table: to complexify the proposition so you can’t figure out if the odds are in your favor.

Oh, and if you’ve already chosen to use Firefox as your default browser, Microsoft overrides your decision when you “upgrade” and switches you to the latest incarnation of the immortal undead monster formerly known as Internet Explorer.

See also here, where they note that you cannot shut the service off except by getting deep into dodgy operating system functions, and it listens to everything that you say.

A ain’t gonna go Mac though:  I hate walled gardens, so it’s probably some flavor of Linux for me next time around.

Once Again, We See Cooperation Working Better than Capitalism

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A rural cooperative in Mexico has gotten a permanent license, andit has delivered a service an order of magnitude cheaper than the private politically connected crony capitalists running most of Mexico’s cell phone services:

Until this month, Celia Pérez could only afford a brief weekly call to her husband, Rubén Martínez, who left left their remote rural community in Mexico two years ago to find a job in the United States.

Pérez, 25, was pregnant with their third child when Martínez headed north; he made it to New Jersey and regularly wires home money from his construction job, but the long separation and infrequent calls have been tough on everyone.

Now, a legal triumph by indigenous activists has cracked the monopoly enjoyed by Mexico’s powerful telephone magnates – including the world’s richest man, Carlos Slim – and opened the door to new services which will slash the cost of communication.

Indigenous Communities Telecommunications (TIC) last month won a long battle with the government to become the world’s first not-for-profit group to be granted a mobile phone concession.

………

A handful of public phone booths are hosted in the village’s few shops. Until recently, Pérez paid 15 pesos ($0.80) a minute to call her husband. Once a month, she would travel two hours to Tlaxiaco – the nearest town with mobile phone signal and 3G internet – to send him photos of their young children.

………

An experimental concession was awarded in May 2014, allowing affordable, community-owned telephone services to be installed in 16 communities in Oaxaca over the next two years.

In July 2016, TIC – which works alongside Rhizomatica – was granted the first-ever permanent licence.

………

Nuyoó is the first community to benefit from the July victory.

In all, it cost 180,000 pesos ($10,000) for the equipment and installation – a third of what one multinational provider wanted to charge.

Subscription is free, but each registered user must pay 40 pesos a month – 15 goes to TIC to cover overheads and serious repairs – and the rest stays in the community to cover the upfront running costs.

Calls within the network – which includes 17 communities so far – are free. International and national calls are cheap: one peso will buy five minutes to US.

My bad. It’s not an order of magnitude. It’s a factor of 75, so it’s 7½ times more than an order of magnitude.

Carlos Slim is the richest man in the world because he can charge 75 times the actual cost, and he has the concession because he is politically connected.

When people talk about the virtues of capitalism, they ignore this sort of corrupt reality .

A Noun, and a Verb, and 91………Whatever

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Rudy “A Noun, a Verb and 9/11” Giuliani some how managed to forget the 911 terrorist attacks:

In early January 2010, Rudy Giuliani, known for his obsessive focus on the 9/11 attacks, made a bizarre comment on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” The former mayor argued, “What [President Obama] should be doing is following the right things that [George W. Bush] did – one of the right things he did was treat this as a war on terror.”
Giuliani added, “We had no domestic attacks under Bush. We’ve had one under Obama.”
Of course, we had a very memorable domestic attack under Bush. The “one” under Obama, in this case, apparently referred to “Underwear Bomber” Umar Abdulmutallab, who attempted to detonate a concealed explosive on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, but who failed. This “attack,” fortunately, led to zero casualties.
More than six years later, Giuliani is still confused.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani on Monday said terrorists failed to successfully strike the United States in the eight years before President Obama and former secretary of State Hillary Clinton took office.
“Under those eight years, before Obama came along, we didn’t have any successful radical Islamic terrorist attack in the United States,” Giuliani said Monday ahead of a speech by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on foreign policy. “They all started when Clinton and Obama got into office.”

Seriously.  Giuliani is a man who has been a horror show his entire life, (he announced his divorce in a press conference before he told his then wife) with the exception of one day, and when it is inconvenient, it slips his mind.

What a horrible man.

Yes, Ping Pong Balls are Hazardous Cargo

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Don’t try this at home. Seriously!

I don’t know if you’ve ever lit a ping pong ball on fire, but it’s a rather exciting thing. (I have done so)

They are made from celluloid, the highly flammable material that movie film was once made of, and lighting even one ball can sate the little pyromaniac in many of us.

A truck load of ping pong balls is literally hazardous cargo, which is why the Rio games has moved to “Polyballls”, which contain no celluload.

These are not flammable, and they bounce in much the same way, but they are having some durability issues:

The Olympics is apparently dealing with its own version of deflategate.

Matches in Rio de Janeiro have ended with balls that look like they combusted from being smashed — even though players haven’t changed their pressure in any way. It’s a new and frustrating problem in a game marred by hiccups like a green pool and then, a fart-smelling green pool.

That’s because the official balls of 2016 are made of a new non-celluloid material that inhibits durability, says David Brasfield, a customer service representative at Paddle Palace, the official ball supplier of the United States Table Tennis team. What’s worse is that this problem isn’t limited to the DHS ball that’s being used in Rio de Janeiro; all new polyballs are facing similar ball-busting problems.

Despite the growing pains, the switch to non-celluloid balls was practically a necessity because of the severe fire hazard posed by celluloid balls. “We can now have a large quantity of balls come by air quickly, and we couldn’t have done that before,” points out Brasfield; previously, containers of celluloid balls had to be delivered by hazmat trucks with flammable solid warnings plastered all over them.

Mostly though, I am posting this for the the burning vid.  I could watch this all day.

Later, I’ll show you a trick with a dry cleaner bag.

Linkage

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A righteous rant on the absurd restrictions on Olympics Coverage

H/t TPM.

Billy West Should Get a Nobel Prize

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The voice actor, known for Doug and Ren and Stimpy, as well as the voice of Fry, among others, in Fututama.

One of the voices that he did on the latter show was that of Zapp Branigan, the egotistical, incompetent, and misogynist ship commander who once had a fling with Turanga Leela, much to Leela’s chagrin.

Mr. West decided to read Donald Trump quotes as if they were spoken by Zapp Branigan and posted it to Twitter (#MakeAmericaBrannigan), and it is brilliant and amazing.

Donald Trump IS Zapp Branigan.:

Zapp presents…Famous Quotes from Donald J Trump#MakeAmericaBrannigan pic.twitter.com/FnJNn2zIAq

— Billy West (@TheBillyWest) August 15, 2016

Billy West is a national treasure.👏 RT @TheBillyWest: ZAPP presents…Famous Trump Quotations!#MakeAmericaBrannigan pic.twitter.com/y14Uxpqo8j

— Q. Allan Brocka (@allanbrocka) August 13, 2016

ZAPP presents…Famous Trump Quotations! pic.twitter.com/cFq1rQ4veY

— Billy West (@TheBillyWest) August 11, 2016

Zapp (& Kif) present…Famous Quotes from Donald J Trump#MakeAmericaBrannigan pic.twitter.com/JLxemUhRFW

— Billy West (@TheBillyWest) August 15, 2016

ZAPP presents … Famous Trump Quotes! #WednesdayWisdom #ManWithAPlan pic.twitter.com/dpKJOVkTmA

— Billy West (@TheBillyWest) August 10, 2016

ZAPP presents… Famous Trump Quotations! pic.twitter.com/jGzmsKM9cF

— Billy West (@TheBillyWest) August 10, 2016

— Billy West (@TheBillyWest) August 10, 2016

Zapp presents…Famous Quotations from Donald J Trump#MakeAmericaBrannigan pic.twitter.com/cyDReNPT7U

— Billy West (@TheBillyWest) August 11, 2016

Zapp presents…Famous Quotes from Donald J Trump#MakeAmericaBrannigan pic.twitter.com/JUrQvzPHYo

— Billy West (@TheBillyWest) August 14, 2016

Zapp presents…Famous Quotes from Donald J Trump#MakeAmericaBrannigan pic.twitter.com/iSimNkFTZ9

— Billy West (@TheBillyWest) August 14, 2016

ZAPP presents…Famous Trump Quotations!#MakeAmericaBrannigan pic.twitter.com/guqadM7P02

— Billy West (@TheBillyWest) August 12, 2016

F%$# Me. I Agree with Rand Paul.

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I guess that we file this under that even a stopped clock is right twice a day, because Senator Aqua Buddha is opposing the massive arms sale to Saudi Arabia because of their indiscriminate brutality in Yemen:

Citing concerns over Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, Republican Senator Rand Paul says he’s looking for ways to stop a $1.15 billion weapons deal with Riyadh that would include the sale of 130 Abrams battle tanks, 20 armored vehicles, and other military equipment.

Paul’s pledge comes as Saudi Arabia resumed its bombardment of the Yemeni capital of Sanaa following the collapse of peace talks in Kuwait between representatives of the government and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

“I will work with a bipartisan coalition to explore forcing a vote on blocking this sale,” Paul told Foreign Policy in a statement. “Saudi Arabia is an unreliable ally with a poor human rights record. We should not rush to sell them advanced arms and promote an arms race in the Middle East.”

Humanitarian organizations are criticizing the proposed weapons sale as a setback for efforts to bring pressure on Riyadh to throttle back its military campaign. The U.N. estimates that at least 6,400 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the conflict while more than 2.8 million have been displaced from their homes.

He’s right.

Saudi Arabia provided support for the 911 bombers, and they created ISIS.

They are not our allies, and we should not be helping them in Yemen, which, among other things, has resulted in a massive increase in the power of al Qaeda in that nation.

Damn

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The Labour Executive Council won its appeal, so 130,000 new Labour members will not be able to vote in the next leadership election:

Labour’s ruling body has won its bid to overturn a high court decision allowing new party members to vote in the forthcoming leadership election, a ruling that could bar tens of thousands of supporters of Jeremy Corbyn from voting in the ballot.

The ruling by three court of appeal judges, Lord Justice Beatson, Lady Justice Macur and Lord Justice Sales, will mean 130,000 new members who joined less than six months ago will not be able to vote in the forthcoming poll between Corbyn and Owen Smith for the Labour leadership.

Corbyn’s campaign condemned the decision as wrong “both legally and democratically”, warning that it threatened to disenfranchise members who were explicitly told upon joining the party that they would have a vote in any leadership election.

“Crucial to the outcome today was the introduction of a new argument by the Labour party HQ’s lawyers, who invoked an obscure clause in the Labour party rules (chapter 4, clause II, 1A), which could be read as giving the NEC the right to ignore all of the rules laid out for leadership elections,” a campaign spokesman said.

“In other words, this is a ‘make it up as you go along’ rule. We do not think that making it up as you go along is a reasonable way to conduct democracy in our party.”

I still think that Corbyn will win, but I think that it will be a much closer thing.