Good morning from my office perched between the two stadiums in Seattle. It is 5:00 on a Saturday morning, and there isn’t a creature stirring…
This is my favorite time of the day. It is quiet and no humans to bother me. This is the time I have to work on my coding project.
But first, the news.
Assad Flees as Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah cut bait and leave
Assad Flees, Israeli Fighter Jets Strike Damascus
Israeli air strikes are believed to have hit the Syrian capital of Damascus, according to Lebanese and Syrian security sources.
Explosions were heard in the Mazzeh district in the southwest outskirts of the city Sunday morning, hours after the rebel forces entered the city and claimed victory over Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
The area is home to a Syrian air base and other military structures belonging to the regime. Separately, sources claimed Israeli jets targeted another military air base in the south of the country.
Analysts believe Israel may be seizing the moment to destroy weapons and ammunition depots belonging to Assad’s army to avoid them falling into the hands of the rebel forces.
Assad fled the country overnight, Russia confirmed, after a lightning offensive by jihadist opposition forces swept across Syria, seizing the cities of Aleppo, Hama, Homs and now Damascus.
Mohammed Ghazi Jalali, the Syrian prime minister, has said the government was ready to “cooperate” with the opposition and hand over its functions in a peaceful transition of power.
MY TAKE:
The only reason Assad lasted as long as he did was because Russia was backing Assad because they need their naval base. But with Russia over-extended and losing their ass in Ukraine, and Iran and Hezbollah otherwise occupied with Israel, there isn’t enough left to protect Assad.
So they left him high and dry.
The question is that now that Assad has left, what kind of government are these rebels going to form?
Assad’s whereabouts are unknown after a plane fleeing Syria vanished off radars
Assad’s whereabouts are unknown after a plane fleeing Syria vanished off radars
SYRIA’S government has fallen in a stunning end to the 24-year rule of Bashar al-Assad after rebels seized Damascus in a lightning blitz.
Assad fled the capital in a plane early on Sunday as the butcher’s regime was overthrown by the militants in just 10 days.
The hunt for the tyrant – notorious for nerve gas attacks on children – now begins after he escaped to an unconfirmed hideout and a plane fleeing Syria vanished off radars.
Syria’s rebels stormed into Damascus on Saturday after seizing cities and towns in an almost unchecked advance.
The fall of Assad is a humiliating blow for Vladimir Putin and Iran who had backed the tyrant during the civil war.
Syria has been shattered by more than 13 years of conflict that has turned cities to rubble, killed hundreds of thousands of people, and forced millions abroad as refugees.
Mysterious Car Sized Drones…
What we know about the ‘car-sized’ drones spotted near Trump’s New Jersey golf club
The FBI has been investigating reports of mysterious “car-sized” drones flying across North Jersey at night over the last few weeks. Now, the agency’s asking the public for help.
Witnesses have spotted a cluster of what appears to be drones — larger than those typically used by hobbyists — as well as a possible fixed-wing aircraft flying in several areas along the Raritan River over the last three weeks.
The devices have prompted concerns because of their proximity to President-elect Donald Trump’s Bedminster golf course and Picatinny Arsenal, a U.S. military research and manufacturing facility, as well as local city infrastructure.
In recent days, videos of sightings, speculation, and commentary about the drones have circulated on TikTok, sparking new interest.
Expand article logo Continue reading
Here’s everything we know — and don’t know — about the drones and the FBI’s ongoing investigation.
What exactly is happening?
Large drones have been spotted hovering in formation over northern New Jersey, leaving residents confused and concerned.
The drones started appearing around mid-November and have returned most nights, according to multiple outlets.
MY TAKE:
I doubt that these drones are checking out Donald Trump’s golf course. It’s more likely that they are there because of the military base directly north of the golf course.
If these things are the size of a car, then maybe someone should try shooting it down.
A Secret Pentagon Study?
Secret Pentagon study hints at reincarnation being real after finding consciousness ‘never dies’
A study conducted by US Army Intelligence has suggested that reincarnation is real because consciousness ‘never dies.’
Entitled ‘Analysis and Assessment of The Gateway Process,’ the 29-page report was drafted by US Army Lieutenant Colonel Wayne M McDonnell in 1983 and declassified by the CIA in 2003.
The research has resurfaced on social media, with Chicago-based comedian Sara Holcomb summarizing the findings, saying: ‘We’re pretty sure reincarnation is real.’
‘Consciousness is energy and it exists outside of our understanding of reality,’ Holocomb said, paraphrasing page 19 of McDonnell’s Army intel report. ‘And energy… never dies.’
The mind-bending official Pentagon study was commissioned to better understand what its Army intel colleagues were doing sending personnel to a small institute in Charlottesville, Virginia that was working on the ‘Gateway Experience.’
The then-secretive ‘Gateway’ project, based to McDonnell’s analysis, was ‘a training system designed to bring enhanced strength, focus and coherence… to alter consciousness.’
From there, Gateway’s ambitious goal was to shift the practitioner’s consciousness ‘outside the physical sphere so as to ultimately escape even the restrictions of time and space.’
At least according to McDonnell, the Monroe Institute’s discoveries that wound up bolstering the case for reincarnation were profound.
MY TAKE:
I’ll let you know what I find out in a few months when I finally kick the bucket.
More than likely, there is nothing there after you die. All the stories about near death experiences can easily be explained by the dying off of the brain. A person who has ‘died’ might take several minutes to completely fade out, and whatever residual memories you have will die off when your brain finally goes.
Maybe Start Packing Now?
Migrants Prepare for Mass Deportation: ‘Should I Just Kiss My Husband Goodbye?’
Trump has always talked tough on the border, but many immigration lawyers and civil-rights activists say this time feels different
Immigrants without legal status or in mixed-status families are avoiding going out in public, scrambling to apply for asylum and attending legal workshops ahead of Donald Trump’s return to power, fearful they will be swept up in the president-elect’s promised mass-deportation campaign.
Trump has said he would order the biggest removal of migrants in American history, prompting people to ask what, if anything, they can do to protect themselves.
“There is a lot of fear, a lot of concern,” said Lizeth Chacón, director of Workers Defense Project, in Texas. “There’s so much our community needs to plan for.”
While Trump has previously proposed tough border crackdowns, many immigration lawyers and civil-rights activists say things feel different this time, with the president-elect pledging to go after as many as 20 million people. Many of those he could target have lived in the U.S. with varying degrees of protections for years or even decades. And he is coming into office as a former commander in chief, with more experience using federal power.
MY TAKE:
Trump’s mass deportation plans are not a new idea. President Eisenhower did a similar thing in the 1950s where it is estimated that roughly 1 million people were deported. Many of them actual American citizens. It ended up causing many more problems than it solved, and it was never tried again until Donald Trump decided to try it again this time around.
A few years ago, I might have had a problem with this, but today I just don’t give a damn one way or the other. It’s going to cause a shitload of problems, and is going to cost a lot more than money to fix, but there is no telling people who have it locked up in their mind that this is the only way to get things done.
Are we going to deport 14 million people?
Probably not. I suspect that a large number of people will ‘self-deport’ before they are rounded up. I also suspect that the government *might* see around a million people out the door.
This does not surprise me in the least
Harvard students are graduating ‘without finishing a book’
Student calls for university to make reading course compulsory
They may be the intellectual elite, but Harvard students could graduate without reading a work of fiction during their time at America’s oldest university.
Chastising her fellow 25,000 students at the college dating back to 1636, Claire Miller has claimed that the university should require them to at least pick up a book.
Writing in The Harvard Crimson, the college newspaper, Ms Miller has called for the university to make an English course compulsory for students, who pay more than $56,000 (£44,350) a year for their tuition.
Posing a question to her peers, she asked: “When was the last time you read a book cover to cover?
“For me, a prospective English concentrator, it was last week. But ask my peers in other concentrations and you’re more likely to get a shrug.
“Harvard students complain about readings constantly.
“They lament any assignments requiring they conquer more than 25 pages as tedious or overwhelming (if they aren’t passing the work off to ChatGPT). It’s far too rare that we’re assigned a full book to read and rarer still that we actually finish them.”
MY TAKE:
I know a couple of people who have graduated from an “Ivy league school” who cannot read at all. They faked it all the way through school and was passed through each grade without ever being forced to learn to read.
So no, this story does not surprise me at all. I know for a fact that roughly 20% of high school graduates cannot read at all.
• 21% of US adults read below a 5th grade level.
• 18% of US adults are functionally illiterate
• 21% of high school seniors meet all four college readiness benchmarks on the ACT
• 31% of college graduates reach a “proficient” level of reading ability, meaning a significant portion graduate without fully mastering reading skills; this suggests a substantial percentage may not be considered fully “literate” upon graduation.
“Floriduh”
Florida teacher is found NAKED in classroom with slew of disturbing items
A Florida teacher has been arrested after being discovered naked inside a classroom with a slew of bizarre items in his possession.
Authorities were initially called to the school after an alarm suggested a potential burglary was in progress but what officers found at Windmill Point Elementary School left them stunned.
Joe Urias, 34, was spotted by a deputy inside a classroom. Urias was found naked and surrounded by a peculiar assortment of items including sex toys, women’s underwear, marijuana, some food and a laptop. He also created a makeshift bed.
School was closed for the Thanksgiving break meaning nobody else was on site, but Port St. Lucie Police Chief Leo Niemczyk described the scene as deeply unsettling.
‘There were no children present. There was nobody inside the school at the time. He was by himself. You know, as to the vulgarity, I think I just don’t even want to get into his mind and think about what he was thinking,’ Niemczyk stated.
When Urias realized he’d been seen, he quickly got dressed and attempted to make a run for it.
Officers gave chase but the situation escalated further when Urias punched a deputy in the face once they caught up to him.
MY TAKE:
Was this guy homeless? From the sounds of it, he was crashing there while school was out for the holiday.
At any rate, he probably shouldn’t be working as an elementary school teacher…
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