Given how many people this pilot killed, it’s inexcusable that their name is being withheld.
https://www.npr.org/2025/01/30/nx-s1-5281246/pentagon-jet-military-helicopter-collision
Army withholds name of Black Hawk helicopter crew in D.C. crash, 2 others identified
By Tom Bowman and Quil Lawrence
January 31, 2025
The Army has identified two of the three soldiers killed in Wednesday’s crash outside a busy Washington, D.C. airport. The three-person crew was on board a Black Hawk helicopter that collided with an American Airlines passenger jet carrying 64 people.
The soldiers identified are Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin O’Hara, 28, of Lilburn, Ga. and Chief Warrant Officer Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39, of Great Mills, Md.
The third crew member on the helicopter was a female pilot with 500 hours of flying experience, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation. The Army is withholding the pilot’s name at the request of her family.
The withholding of a name in instances like this is a highly unusual move. The identity of the third crew member has already drawn intense scrutiny online.
Misinformation on social media falsely claims she was a transgender pilot from the Virginia National Guard named Jo Ellis. Ellis has posted a “proof of life” video on Facebook, denouncing the rumors and offering condolences to those killed in the crash.
Illinois Democrat Sen. Tammy Duckworth, herself a decorated former Black Hawk pilot, told NPR she understood why the family declined to make their loved-one’s name public.
“ We should be respecting the family’s wishes at a time when they have suffered an unbelievable loss,” Duckworth said. “I think it is a perfectly legitimate request the family would make. And I’m glad that the Army is honoring that request.”
Duckworth condemned the online speculation about the third member of the crew and especially President Trump’s musings that the Army crew was to blame or was affected by diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) hiring.
“Every one of those troops that was in that aircraft earned their place there, and they are the most highly trained military aviators in the world,” Duckworth said. “And I am just sick to my stomach that we would have a president who would say such things about the heroic men and women who serve every single day.”
Despite President Trump saying the pilots of the Army helicopter bore responsibility for the crash, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said the crew was “fairly experienced” and carrying out a “required annual night evaluation, they did have night vision goggles.”
There remain, however, many unanswered questions about the flight pattern of the Black Hawk helicopter and the exact nature of the training exercise it was on at the time of the crash.
“Initial indications suggest this may have been a checkride, or periodic evaluation by an experienced instructor pilot of a less experienced pilot,” said Brad Bowman, a military analyst with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former Black Hawk pilot.
“A checkride, as opposed to a normal training flight, creates some unique dynamics in the cockpit. In a checkride, the less experienced pilot can be nervous and eager to not make mistakes, while the instructor pilot is watching to see how the other pilot responds to different developments,” Bowman explained. “Sometimes an instructor pilot will test the less experienced aviator to see how they respond, but such a technique would have been unusual and inadvisable in that location given the reduced margin for error.”
Map showing the paths of the passenger jet and Army helicopter that collided over the Potomac near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DC).
Defense officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly, told NPR that the instructor pilot, now believed to be Chief Warrant Officer Eaves, had 1,000 hours of flight time, which is considered experienced. The co-pilot, whose name is being withheld, had 500 hours, which is considered normal.
Officials also tell NPR that the Black Hawk was supposed to be flying at a maximum of 200 feet, though sources say it was flying at least 100 feet higher. All requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the investigation.
On Thursday the National Transportation Safety Board says it recovered what are commonly called “black boxes” from the plane — the cockpit voice and flight data recorders. Federal safety investigators believe the Black Hawk helicopter also had its own recording devices, which they hope will help provide more clues on the cause of the crash.
In the hierarchy of wokeism, trans people outrank people with disabilities.
https://x.com/DanielAlmanPGH/status/1884424359386767644
Second teenage footballer banned for asking if transgender opponents were men
Teenager with learning difficulties suspended for six matches for questioning referee about eligibility of ‘aggressive’ opponents
By Ben Rumsby
January 28, 2025
A second teenage footballer has been handed a six-match ban for asking whether adult transgender opponents she was playing were men.
An 18-year-old, whom Telegraph Sport has been told has both ADHD and learning difficulties, was sanctioned by a National Serious Case Panel in a case with parallels to that for which a 17-year-old girl with suspected autism was handed a similar suspension.
The second teen was charged by her county FA over comments she made to a referee during a match in September, the same month she turned 18. It was alleged she said: “Ref, have you checked if all of their players are eligible to play? Look at their ’keeper and for example their number 10 is obviously a man,” or something similar.
She was banned for six matches, two of which were suspended, after accepting the charge brought under national Football Association rules that allow those born male to play in women’s matches. The teen was also forced to undergo an “online education course”, while her club were handed seven disciplinary points.
An investigation into her comments required her to provide a written statement, which Telegraph Sport has been told she needed assistance in composing. In it she said she had sought guidance from the referee due to her trans opponents’ “extremely aggressive” style of play. She also said she had not taken her ADHD medication on the day in question because “another medical condition” had prevented her from doing so.
Referee threatened red card if complaints persisted
The disciplinary proceedings were triggered by a complaint made by the opposition club, which included the claim that she had said to their non-trans players: “This is a man.” She has admitted trying to ask those players if their team-mates were biologically male after failing to get clarity from the ref, who, she wrote in her statement, had threatened to send her off if she continued to quiz him on the matter.
Speaking to Telegraph Sport on condition of anonymity, the teenager said of her ban: “It kind of made me hate football.”
She also said she feared she had been gagged from asking questions or raising concerns about playing against those born male. “If I say anything else, I get another six-game ban,” she said. “So I can’t even stand up for myself at this point.”
The teen’s case has come to light three months after Telegraph Sport revealed a 17-year-old with suspected autism was facing a ban of up to 12 matches for asking an adult transgender opponent: “Are you a man?” She denied a discrimination charge but was banned for six games in November, four of them suspended.
The outcome was condemned in the House of Lords in November by former FA chairman Lord Triesman, who wrote to the FA about it and was invited to meet its leaders to discuss his concerns. It also sparked protests by campaigners outside England men’s and women’s matches at Wembley and Bramall Lane.
As with the ban imposed on the 17-year-old, the written reasons for the punishment imposed on the other teen have not been made public, even in a redacted form.
‘It’s disgraceful another teenage girl has been suspended’
Fiona McAnena, director of campaigns at Sex Matters, said: “It’s disgraceful that another teenage girl has been suspended for daring to challenge the presence of a male player in a women’s game. The FA has punished her for asking a question that matters for her own safety, and for fairness for all girls. Sending her for mandatory ‘re-education’ won’t solve this.
“How many other cases are there like this? How long can the FA continue to claim that there is no problem? How can the FA say it supports the women’s game when girls are being suspended for pointing out there is a man on the pitch?
“Many sports have waited until a man is about to hit the big time in the women’s game before acting to protect the female category. A cynic might speculate that we won’t see fairness in football until a male player demands his place in the Lionesses.”
An FA spokesperson said: “This case was heard by an independent National Serious Case Panel in November 2024, and they issued a sanction for a breach of FA rules. The charges were immediately accepted by the player and the outcome was the minimum sanction that could be issued for a case of this nature. The player did not appeal the sanction.
“In order to protect the players involved, and to respect the confidential details included, we are not in a position to publish the written reasons of this case. We have previously said that cases of this nature are complex and that the information in the public domain is very limited, often to protect the individuals involved.
“We regularly review our processes in this area and we will always look to take the appropriate steps to challenge improper conduct in our game.”
Just over a year ago, 48 MPs and 27 peers signed a letter urging the FA to change its trans rules to “protect women and girls” in football. Its trans policy has long been under review but it has been waiting for Fifa and Uefa to complete reviews of their own policies before amending its own.
Brock Colyar is a lying scumbag! New York Magazine literally cropped all the black people out of this cover photo and then complained that “the entire room is white.”
https://x.com/ChrisBarnardDL/status/1884028088843190523
https://twitter.com/ChrisBarnardDL/status/1884028088843190523
Environmentalists vs unions. The left is eating its own.
Tesla faces Swedish union’s police complaint over alleged illegal electrical work
January 28, 2025
Tesla is under scrutiny from Swedish authorities following a complaint lodged by the Union of Swedish Electricians, Bloomberg News reported.
The labor union has accused the US automaker of conducting unauthorized electrical work at its charging stations in an attempt to bypass a sympathy strike by union members.
The union’s allegations, made public on Tuesday, suggest that Tesla performed work at certain installations without registering it with the National Electrical Safety Board, a requirement under Swedish law.
The complaint is the latest twist in a 15-month dispute between Tesla and Swedish labor unions, which began when the electric vehicle manufacturer declined to sign a collective bargaining agreement with mechanics at its Swedish workshops.
The union is still awaiting an update from the police on an earlier report filed in the summer of 2024.
Earlier this month, Max de Zegher, Tesla’s head of charging, said that over 100 charging stalls would have been operational in Sweden if not for the sympathy strikes. His statement came after reports of Swedish vacationers waiting in long lines to use EV chargers.
Congratulations to the CIA for finally reading this Washington Post article that was published five years ago!
https://x.com/DanielAlmanPGH/status/1883368253642482028
Washington Post, April 14, 2020: “State Department cables warned of safety issues at Wuhan lab studying bat coronaviruses”
New York Times, January 25, 2025: “C.I.A. Now Favors Lab Leak Theory to Explain Covid’s Origins”
C.I.A. Now Favors Lab Leak Theory to Explain Covid’s Origins
Original: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/25/us/politics/cia-covid-lab-leak.html
Archive: https://archive.ph/DaBme
C.I.A. Now Favors Lab Leak Theory to Explain Covid’s Origins
A new analysis that began under the Biden administration is released by the C.I.A.’s new director, John Ratcliffe, who wants the agency to get “off the sidelines” in the debate.
By Julian E. Barnes
January 25, 2025
The C.I.A. has said for years that it did not have enough information to conclude whether the Covid pandemic emerged naturally from a wet market in Wuhan, China, or from an accidental leak at a research lab there.
But the agency issued a new assessment this week, with analysts saying they now favor the lab theory.
That shift is based on “the available body of reporting,” although the other theory remains plausible, a spokeswoman for the agency said, adding that the agency will continue to evaluate any available credible new intelligence reporting.
Some American officials say the debate matters little: The Chinese government failed to either regulate its markets or oversee its labs. But others argue it is an important intelligence and scientific question.
John Ratcliffe, the new director of the C.I.A., has long favored the lab leak hypothesis. He has said it is a critical piece of intelligence that needs to be understood and that it has consequences for U.S.-Chinese relations.
The announcement of the shift came shortly after Mr. Ratcliffe told Breitbart News he no longer wanted the agency “on the sidelines” of the debate over the origins of the Covid pandemic. Mr. Ratcliffe has long said he believes that the virus most likely emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Officials said the agency was not bending its views to a new boss, and that the new assessment had been in the works for some time.
In the final weeks of the Biden administration, Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, ordered a new classified review of the pandemic’s origin. As part of that review, the agency’s previous director, William J. Burns, told analysts that they needed to take a position on the origins of Covid, though he was agnostic on which theory they should embrace, a senior U.S. intelligence official said.
Another senior U.S. official said it was Mr. Ratcliffe’s decision to declassify and release the new analysis.
There is no new intelligence behind the agency’s shift. Rather it is based on the same evidence it has been chewing over for months.
The analysis, however, is based in part on a closer look at the conditions in the high security labs in Wuhan province before the pandemic outbreak, according to people familiar with the agency’s work.
Since the outbreak of the pandemic, questions have swirled around whether the two labs handling coronaviruses in Wuhan had followed safety protocols strictly enough.
The agency made its new assessment with “low confidence,” which means the intelligence behind it is fragmentary and incomplete.
Even in the absence of hard intelligence, the lab leak hypothesis has been gaining ground inside spy agencies. But some analysts question the wisdom of shifting a position in absence of new information.
Former officials say they are not averse to a new examination of the Covid origins intelligence by the Trump administration. President Biden ordered a new review of the intelligence early in his administration after officials told the White House they had still-unexamined evidence.
Mr. Ratcliffe has raised questions about politicization in the intelligence agencies. Mr. Ratcliffe, who was the director of national intelligence in the first Trump administration, argued in an essay for Fox News in 2023 that the C.I.A. did not want to embrace the lab leak to avoid geopolitical problems for the Biden administration.
“The real problem is, the only assessment the agency could make — which is that a virus that killed over a million Americans originated in a C.C.P.-controlled lab whose research included work for the Chinese military — has enormous geopolitical implications that the Biden administration does not want to face head-on,” he said in the piece, which was written with Cliff Sims, a top aide. C.C.P. refers to China’s Communist Party.
Mr. Ratcliffe said on Thursday, when he was sworn in, that a look at the origins of Covid was a “Day 1” priority.
“I think our intelligence, our science and our common sense all really dictate that the origins of Covid was a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” he told Breitbart. “But the C.I.A. has not made that assessment or at least not made that assessment publicly. So I’m going to focus on that and look at the intelligence and make sure that the public is aware that the agency is going to get off the sidelines.”
Senior intelligence officials in the Biden administration defend their process and methodology. They have said that no intelligence was suppressed and insist that politics did not play into their analysis.
These officials say that there are powerful logical arguments for both the lab leak and the natural causes theories, but that there simply is no decisive piece of intelligence on either side of the issue.
To boost the natural origins theory, intelligence officers would like to find the animal that passed it to a human or find a bat carrying what was the likely ancestor of the coronavirus that causes Covid.
Similarly, to seal the lab leak, the intelligence community would like to find evidence that one of the labs in Wuhan was working on a progenitor virus that directly led to the epidemic.
Neither piece of evidence has been found.
But Mr. Ratcliffe has promised a more aggressive C.I.A., and it is possible that he will order more actions to penetrate the labs in Wuhan or the Chinese government in a search for information.
It will not be an easy secret to steal. The senior ranks of the Chinese government do not know, and do not want to know, American officials have said. So if there is intelligence, it is probably hidden in a place that is hard to get to.
Intelligence officials interviewed in recent weeks say it is possible that such a piece of evidence exists in a lab in China, at least in theory. But, they said, it is still more likely that the answers to questions surrounding the virus’s origins will come through a scientific breakthrough, not an intelligence revelation.
Under the Biden administration, the intelligence community leaned toward the theory that the virus came from the market. But officials readily admitted it was hardly a sure thing.
Five agencies, including the National Intelligence Council and the Defense Intelligence Agency, assessed that natural exposure most likely caused the epidemic. But they said that they had only low-confidence in their assessment.
Until now, two agencies, the F.B.I. and Department of Energy, thought a lab leak was more likely. But their theories are different. The F.B.I. believes the virus came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The Energy Department put its bet on another lab, the Wuhan Center for Disease Control.
Officials would not say if the C.I.A. believes one lab or the other was the more likely source of the virus.
As a person who is against government “waste,” I know this is completely hypocritical of me, but I agree with Trump’s executive order that requires classical styles for federal architecture.
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
January 25, 2025
I know this is completely hypocritical of me, but I agree with Trump’s executive order that requires classical styles for federal architecture.
I was born in 1971. For my entire life, I’ve always lived within 3 blocks of Allderdice High School in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And I’ve always admired the architecture in the front of the building that you could see when you were standing on the sidewalk along Shady Ave.
But then in the mid 1980s – about a year before I started going to Allderdice – they built a new gym on the lawn in front of the building. And it’s the most ugly, horrific looking building that I’ve ever seen in my life.
Government buildings are supposed to look beautiful, traditional, and majestic.
To make them look like just a box (like that gym) is an insult to all of humanity.
Yes, this is hypocritical of me, and contradicts all of my previous claims about how I was against “wasting” the taxpayer’s money, but that’s how I feel, and I’m self aware enough to admit my own hypocrisy.
Trump signs new executive order mandating Classical styles for federal architecture
By Josh Niland
Jan 21, 2025
One of the two dozen or so new Trump Administration’s executive orders issued since assuming office includes a mandate for the restoration of an amalgam of classicism-inspired “traditional” architectural styles in all new federal government buildings.
The newly signed Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture order directs the General Services Administration (GSA) to submit recommendations within 60 days that “advance the policy that Federal public buildings should be visually identifiable as civic buildings and respect regional, traditional, and classical architectural heritage in order to uplift and beautify public spaces and ennoble the United States and our system of self-government.”
The President, via the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, would then also have to be notified within 30 days of the GSA’s approval of any new building design that deviates from the newly revised Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture. A consideration for the inclusion of community feedback in the design selection process is mentioned as well.
This brazen and fairly dilettante-like action follows a similar but later repealed February 2020 order declaring public buildings to be “the ornament of a country” and demanding that the restitution of buildings whose designs evoke the “vocabulary of the architecture of Greek and Roman antiquity” over those such as Brutalism and Deconstructivism, which were labeled a subversion of traditional values.
Trump has repeatedly promoted the notion that Classical architectural styles are emblematic of the grandeur and glory of the United States, something that scholars have pointed to as being historically problematic due to its associations with slavery. The American Institute of Architects had spoken out against the push emphatically during his first turn in office. Still, other groups—including the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Society of Architectural Historians, Docomomo US, the ASLA, and NOMA—have labeled it as an attempt to “censor” modern architecture.
I support meritocracy because people like Gavin Newsom should never be put in charge of anything. It’s evil that he’s so happy – even rocking side to side in glee – as he talks about the people who died and lost their homes. Skip to 0:57
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCt6fGmsTAk
We need to bring back orphanages.
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/woman-says-she-doesnt-want-091500777.html
Me (35) and my husband (37) have been married for 3 years. We do not have children, nor have we ever wanted children. We love our child free life. My sister (32) has 3 girls. 13, 9, and 7.
I love them very much but I’ve never been the aunt that wants them to spend the night or spend time more than a couple hours with them. They stress me out, all kids do lol.
My sister is an addict and my nieces dad is currently in prison. Their grandma, who is also my mother but I have no contact with, has guardianship of them. That story we’ll save for another post. My sister, who comes in and out of the girls lives, has had nothing to do with me. Once is awhile she’ll reach out and say hi, but that’s more like 2 times a year. Even though I reach out once a week.
Anyways long story short it’s a very toxic family environment and me and my husband just stick to ourselves. Recently, the place they have all been living at has been sold and they were told in November they have until January 31 to be out. So today 1/23 they had my 13 year old niece call me and tell me their not going to have anywhere to live if I don’t take them in. Yes, they had the 13 year call me and say that.
Idk what to do. I don’t want to change up mine and my husband’s life. I love they way our life is. I’m so mentally drained. I don’t want the responsibility and don’t feel like it’s mine but I also feel guilty. I’ve been doing this for years, dealing with others messes. Both my parents were addicts and it’s the same toxic cycle with my sister.
The LA wildfires have left the diversity industry in ruins
The LA wildfires have left the diversity industry in ruins
This historic disaster has awoken countless Americans to the downsides of DEI
By Michael Deacon
January 14, 2025
Across the US, big businesses are quietly ditching their diversity programmes. Perhaps now the country’s public services will follow suit. Because the LA wildfires appear to have awoken the American public to the downsides of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion – aka DEI.
For example, Fox News has reported that, while LA officials were cutting millions of dollars in funding from the local fire department, hundreds of thousands of dollars were allocated to initiatives promoting diversity. Such as a “queer choir” known as the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles, and something called the “Midnight Stroll Transgender Cafe”.
Almost as extraordinary is a video from 2019, in which the woman in charge of DEI at the Los Angeles Fire Department explains why the emergency services need a diverse workforce. And during this video, which is currently going viral online, Deputy Chief Kristine Larson makes two comments that are downright mind-boggling.
First, she airily dismisses those who worry that women aren’t physically strong enough to be firefighters. People, she sniffs, often say, “You couldn’t carry my husband out of a fire.” To which, apparently, she retorts: “He got himself in the wrong place if I have to carry him out of a fire.”
What’s that supposed to mean? That it’s your husband’s fault if a female firefighter is incapable of lifting him? What’s the poor man to do, if he finds himself trapped in a burning building? Embark on the world’s fastest ever crash diet, until he’s light enough for her to pop him under her arm like a Mulberry clutch?
Even more absurd, however, is Ms Larson’s other argument in favour of workforce diversity. Because she claims that, when a fire engine or an ambulance arrives at your home, “You want to see someone… that looks like you.”
Really? I don’t know about LA, but in Britain I doubt that anyone calling 999 says, “Oh, and by the way, I refuse to have my life saved by a white fireman. I insist on being rescued by a fireperson of colour. So, if you don’t have any currently on staff, I’m happy to wait till you’ve trained one up.”
That would be mad enough. But imagine if the caller were white. “When I get to hospital, I demand to be treated by staff that look like me. So white doctors and nurses only, please. None of these black or Asian ones…”
Most people, I suspect, would consider such a demand to be more than a touch racist. But in the Alice in Wonderland world of DEI, mere logic doesn’t get a look-in.
I’m very disgusted with Trump giving pardons to the people who assaulted police officers on January 6.
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
January 22, 2025
I’m very disgusted with Trump giving pardons to the people who assaulted police officers on January 6.
Violence against innocent people is always wrong.
Violence against innocent people is not in any way the same thing as legal protest or free speech.
One of the most important functions of government is to protect people from violent criminals.
Shame on Trump for sending the message that violence against innocent people is something that is acceptable and will be tolerated.
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5098764-trump-pardon-violent-jan-6-rioters/
Trump pardoned violent Jan. 6 rioters. Here are 5 of them
By Ella Lee
January 22, 2025
Hundreds of rioters accused of violently assaulting police at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, were pardoned Monday by President Trump, despite remarks from his allies in recent weeks condemning those defendants.
More than 600 people who invaded the Capitol that day as lawmakers sought to certify the results of the 2020 election were charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding law enforcement — and nearly 200 of them did so using a deadly or dangerous weapon.
The crowds forced the evacuation of lawmakers who were set to certify the results of the election, and while they later returned to the Capitol that day to complete their work, more than 140 officers had been injured and some later died.
Trump’s sweeping pardons countered the messaging of his allies, many of whom condemned violent offenders until the stroke of his pen.
Vice President Vance said earlier this month that people who “committed violence” on Jan. 6 should “obviously” not receive pardons — though he walked that back to add that he and Trump care about “people unjustly locked up.”
Pam Bondi, Trump’s pick for attorney general, similarly condemned “any violence on a law enforcement officer in this country” during her confirmation hearing and vowed to help Trump look at the cases individually, if asked.
But the pardons showed little regard for the wide range of offenses among the rioters, instead encapsulating all of those who fought their way past police and into the Capitol building.
Here are five of the rioters who committed violent assaults that day but still received pardons.
David Dempsey
A Jan. 6 rioter with a history of political violence, David Dempsey was given one of the longest sentences in connection with the riot.
Prosecutors said he “viciously assaulted and injured police officers” at the Capitol that day, climbing over other rioters like “human scaffolding” to reach the front of the crowd. There, he began a “prolonged attack” on law enforcement using his hands, flagpoles, broken furniture, pepper spray and “anything else he could get his hands on.”
“Dempsey was one of the most violent rioters, during one of the most violent stretches of
time, at the scene of the most violent confrontations at the Capitol on January 6, 2021,” federal prosecutors wrote in their sentencing request to the judge.
He was previously convicted after spraying a crowd of anti-Trump protesters with bear repellent in 2019 while wearing a “Make America Great Again” cap, which the government said “ominously foreshadowed” his later assault at the Capitol.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, sentenced Dempsey to 20 years in prison, describing his conduct as “exceptionally egregious.”
Julian Khater
Julian Khater, who pleaded guilty to two counts of assaulting police with a dangerous weapon, aimed pepper spray at officers using a bike rack to hold back rioters.
One officer he sprayed, identified as “Officer B.S.” in court documents, was later identified as Brian Sicknick — a Capitol Police officer who had two strokes and died of natural causes the day after the riot.
Khater sprayed another officer identified in court documents as “Officer C.E.,” who was later identified as Caroline Edwards, one of the officers who testified before the now-defunct House Jan. 6 select committee.
Edwards testified before the panel that she engaged in “hours and hours of hand-to-hand combat” and remembered Sicknick looking “ghostly pale” after he was sprayed.
“It was carnage. It was chaos,” she said.
Shane Jenkins
Shane Jenkins used a metal tomahawk to shatter a Capitol window on Jan. 6, creating a new breach point that allowed rioters to stream into the building.
Once inside, federal prosecutors said Jenkins disassembled wooden furniture for makeshift weapons and hurled nine different objects at police, including a solid wooden desk drawer, a flagpole, a metal walking stick and a broken wooden pole with a “spear-like point … which he launched like a javelin.”
Jenkins was sentenced to seven years in prison.
Christopher Worrell
A member of Florida’s Proud Boys chapter, Christopher Worrell was convicted of assaulting police with a deadly and dangerous weapon and other felony counts.
After plotting with other Proud Boys members to disrupt the certification of the vote, prosecutors said Worrell headed to Washington where he yelled threats at Capitol Police officers and called them names. He later unloaded a full can of pepper spray on police, hitting at least three.
Days before he was set to be sentenced, Worrell cut off his ankle monitor in a Walmart parking lot and went on the run, triggering a six-week manhunt that ended in his arrest at his Florida home.
There, the FBI found night-vision goggles, camping gear and about $4,000 in cash, and they discovered Worrell unconscious. He later admitted to faking a drug overdose as a “delay tactic” and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Thomas Webster
Thomas Webster, a retired New York police officer, was sentenced to 10 years in prison after assaulting a police officer with a metal flagpole and attempting to rip off his gas mask.
Metropolitan Police Department officer Noah Rathbun testified that the confrontation began as he sought to move Webster back from a security perimeter. Webster slammed a bike rack at Rathbun, leading the officer to strike the side of Webster’s face. Then, Webster swung the metal flagpole at the officer.
As Rathbun grabbed for the pole, Webster tackled him to the ground and grabbed his gas mask, choking the officer by the chin strap as other rioters kicked him.
Prosecutors accused Webster of “disgracing a democracy that he once fought honorably to protect and serve.”
Here are some examples of wikipedia’s left wing bias that I cited, right before I got permanently banned.
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
January 21, 2025
https://x.com/DanielAlmanPGH/status/1881912002987315297
Before you possibly ban me, please answer the following questions
1) There was talk page consensus to have a single sentence about Van Jones resigning after it was revealed that he was a self described “communist” who blamed the 9-11 attacks on the U.S. government. Why should I be punished for adding that info to the article?
2) Please explain why you think the article should mention Obama’s actions against offshore drilling, but not his actions in favor of offshore drilling.
3) Also please explain why you think citing Obama’s actions against offshore drilling, without simultaneously citing his actions in favor of offshore drilling, does not violate NPOV, which states, “All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view, representing fairly, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources. This is non-negotiable and expected of all articles and all editors.”
4) How is it not noteworthy that Obama’s choice to head the “Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools” has an extensive history of illegal drug use?
5) If there’s going to be a section on Obama’s claims of transparency, why shouldn’t the section mention cases where Obama was heavily non-transparent?
6) How is Obama’s nationalization of General Motors, and firing of its CEO, not notable to the section on Obama’s economic policy?
7) How is the questioning of the constitutionality of Obama’s czars by two different Senators from Obama’s own party, not relevant to the section on those czars?
Grundle2600 (talk) 18:20, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
Germany recently shut down all of its nuclear power plants. Now they’re telling people not to use washing machines, dishwashers, stoves, ovens, dryers, electric heaters, or vacuum cleaners between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m.
Original: https://tinyurl.com/59wrufan
English translation: https://tinyurl.com/ycxpkrr2
Customers should not wash for three hours
January 3, 2025
Electricity shortage in the southwest! In order to reduce costs and CO2 emissions, people in Baden-Württemberg should use as little electricity as possible on Friday from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m.
The transport capacity of the power lines from the north of Germany to the southwest was overused, the transmission system operator TransnetBW in Stuttgart informed via the app “StromGedacht”.
In order to stabilize the grid, large amounts of electricity from conventional power plants and from abroad are needed, it continues. In 2024, Germany will import more electricity from its European neighbors than ever before!
“With your help, the high costs of these measures for the general public can be reduced and CO2 emissions saved,” the statement continues. There is no need to fear power outages. “However, TransnetBW must do more than usual to keep the network stable.”
Household appliances that use a lot of electricity should not be used during these periods if possible. These include washing machines, dishwashers, stoves, ovens, dryers, electric heaters and vacuum cleaners.
Between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m., electric vehicles or batteries (from laptops, etc.) should not be charged if this can be avoided. Instead, such devices should be powered by the battery in order to reduce the load on the power grid.
App is supposed to help save electricity
The StromgGedacht app is intended to encourage people to shift planned electricity consumption to phases in which enough electricity is available and no compensatory measures (so-called redispatch) are necessary.
According to previous information, private households account for around a quarter of electricity consumption. Private individuals could therefore make an important contribution to relieving the burden on the power grid by saving electricity or postponing consumption.
The Three Investigators books are back in print!
The Three Investigators is a series of children’s mystery novels that many members of Generation X, including myself, grew up with.
They’ve been out of print in the U.S. for decades.
But now, all 10 of the books that were written by series creator Robert Arthur are back in print, in paperback.
September 11, 2024: California is About to Dump 114 Billion Gallons of Water into the Ocean | Geoff Vanden Heuvel
September 11, 2024: California is About to Dump 114 Billion Gallons of Water into the Ocean | Geoff Vanden Heuvel
“The California we know today is really only possible because we move water around—moving water from areas of abundance to areas of need, literally causing the desert to bloom,” says Geoff Vanden Heuvel, Director of Regulatory and Economic Affairs at Milk Producers Council.
Siyamak sits down with Geoff Vanden Heuvel, who will explain why this water release may have little impact on the Delta smelt and what it means for the rest of California.
“We really cannot afford to waste water in the state. We have to make sure that when we dedicate water to the environment, it does good and protects the environment. We absolutely want to do that and have an obligation to do so, but we must maximize the amount of water we store in wet years so we have it in the dry years,” says Vanden Heuvel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpAynbC6Dk0
Apparently, California environmentalists wanted the dry brush and dead trees to accumulate. The Wall St. Journal just wrote, “for environmental conservation reasons, the state doesn’t typically remove brush”
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
January 18, 2025
Apparently, California environmentalists wanted the dry brush and dead trees to accumulate.
The Wall St. Journal just wrote,
“for environmental conservation reasons, the state doesn’t typically remove brush”
Archive: https://archive.ph/GVK6J
I disagree with this policy.
But I don’t live in California.
And I respect the right of California voters to adopt policies that I disagree with.
I would be curious to hear a more detailed explanation from California environmentalists, voters, elected officials, policy makers, and other people about why they chose to adopt this policy.
How L.A. Bureaucracy Made It Harder to Clear Flammable Brush: A mishmash of government agencies failed to keep public lands safe from deadly wildfires, residents say
Archive: https://archive.ph/GVK6J
How L.A. Bureaucracy Made It Harder to Clear Flammable Brush
A mishmash of government agencies failed to keep public lands safe from deadly wildfires, residents say
By Jim Carlton, Mark Maremont, and Dan Frosch
January 18, 2025
LOS ANGELES—Barry Josephson enjoyed a peaceful life in his hilltop home in the Pacific Palisades, save for one constant worry: the highly flammable brush that clogged the surrounding government-owned land.
“We all take a risk living here,” the producer of films including “Enchanted” said. “But that land should be maintained.”
There have been at least five fires in the area since Josephson moved there eight years ago. Most were fueled by brush, which consists of drought-resistant shrubs that burn easily and intensely.
Impatient with government bureaucracy, including a $150 fee for permission to remove brush from state parkland, some of Josephson’s neighbors cleared it on their own.
They might have saved some of their homes. Of 81 houses in the vicinity, Josephson said 54 are still standing amid the wreckage of this month’s Palisades fire, including his. It is particularly remarkable because investigators believe the blaze could have started a few hundred feet away, around a popular hiking destination known as Skull Rock.
As Angelenos absorb the impact of two massive wildfires that killed at least 27 people and damaged or destroyed more than 12,000 structures over the past two weeks, many are asking why so much flammable material was allowed to build up around now-devastated communities. It was particularly dangerous this winter, as vegetation grew quickly following last year’s record rains and dried out in the subsequent drought.
Fire experts said no amount of brush clearing could have stopped flying embers driven by hurricane-strength winds from igniting many buildings that are now rubble and ash.
But better maintenance of the wild lands could have slowed the fires’ growth, providing critical time to first responders and evacuees. And the lack of preventive work despite pleas from residents and warnings from people inside the government demonstrate how little officials did ahead of a foreseeable disaster.
The delays were caused by a slow-moving tangle of government agencies that own or regulate Los Angeles’s undeveloped land and are tasked with mitigating wildfire risks, according to a review of public records and interviews by The Wall Street Journal.
In the Palisades, the city and county of Los Angeles, the state parks department, the California Coastal Commission, and the National Park Service all have a say in what happens on land surrounding residential areas.
They don’t always work well together. In several instances, the Los Angeles Fire Department has issued citations to the state parks department for not clearing vegetation from its property, according to records of community meetings and a person with knowledge of the matter.
A spokesman for California State Parks said the department wasn’t aware of any recent brush clearance violations in the Palisades area and its staff have “quickly investigated and resolved any issue brought to their attention.”
The buildup of brush and other vegetation has been a factor in wildfires all over the country. In Maui, flammable grasses fueled the 2023 inferno that wiped out Lahaina and killed 102 people. Overgrown forests near Paradise, Calif., spread the 2018 Camp Fire that leveled that city and left 85 dead.
Similar fire threats face communities adjoining wild lands from California to Texas, and often it has proven hard for public and private landowners to work together to clear vegetation. “You have state lands next to federal lands next to private lands, and historically, it has been incredibly difficult for those there to work together,” said Jennifer Gray Thompson, chief executive of After the Fire USA, a nonprofit that helps communities rebuild after disasters.
Raising funds to clear public land
Los Angeles has some of the toughest vegetation-management rules in the country, requiring property owners in high-fire-hazard zones to clear brush within 200 feet of any structures and 10 feet of roads or combustible fences. City officials frequently cite owners for failure to clear brush and send crews to clear the land of those who fail to comply, with the owners responsible for the cost.
But Palisades residents have long complained local and state governments don’t follow the same rules on their nearby land.
“They neglect it,” said Bart Young, president of a Palisades neighborhood group that became so fed up with official inaction that it raised $140,000 to fund its own brush cleanup.
The group hired private contractors to pull out dead trees, rake pine needles and clear vegetation on nearby state park land.
Young said he lost his home in the fire, but about 250 of the 300 houses in his immediate neighborhood survived. “It was a good investment on our part,” he said of the brush clearance.
Meeting minutes of the Pacific Palisades Community Council, a volunteer group that represents the area, are filled with discussions of brush-clearance issues.
At a 2023 meeting, a representative from the California State Parks agency said that, for environmental conservation reasons, the state doesn’t typically remove brush. But any concerned citizen, he said, could remove dry vegetation close to their own property after obtaining a permit.
The permit application requires property owners to schedule a visit by a state parks representative, takes up to eight weeks to be processed and costs $150.
The spokesman said the parks department takes wildfire preparation seriously and “the notion that State Parks could have done more in this instance to save homes from the recent firestorms is inaccurate.”
A plan in limbo
After the 2018 Woolsey Fire killed three people and destroyed some 1,600 structures, Los Angeles County commissioned a report with ideas to reduce future wildfire risk.
The report was issued in 2020. More than four years later, many of its recommendations still haven’t been implemented.
Consultants recommended that the county of 10 million people limit development in areas at high risk of wildfires and bolster brush-management requirements for new buildings.
It also said the county should develop “Community Wildfire Protection Plans” for unincorporated areas—a category that includes Altadena, which was devastated by the recent Eaton Fire, as well as land near the Palisades.
Such plans have become standard for communities around the U.S. They help identify areas that need brush cleared and who is responsible for the work. They are particularly useful when different government agencies and private entities that own or oversee adjoining property need to coordinate their efforts.
Molly Mowery, a consultant who worked on the Los Angeles County report, said she was surprised to find it didn’t already have community wildfire plans. “Given the fire history in that area, it was more like, ‘What was keeping them from having these in the first place?’” she said.
More than four years after the report, neither the plans nor a proposed ordinance that includes many of the report’s recommendations on new developments has been finished.
Thuy Hua, a supervising planner for the county planning department, said the pandemic limited opportunities to engage with residents on where to give priority to brush clearing and officials had to balance wildfire protection plans with other projects.
The ordinance was poised to go to the county board of supervisors for approval in 2023. But it was put on hold, county officials said, after they learned the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection first needed to update its wildfire hazard zone maps for the first time in 15 years. The ordinance still hasn’t been passed.
A Cal Fire spokesperson said the agency finished updating its maps last year and told local jurisdictions it would transmit recommendations to them this month.
‘What ends up happening is nothing’
David Barrett is executive director of MySafe:LA, a nonprofit that works with the city fire department to make neighborhoods less prone to fires.
He said there are defined rules, inspection processes and fines to compel residents to clear brush off their land, but the process is less predictable on government property. In some cases, it is tough to determine who owns the land because there aren’t clearly marked boundaries.
“What ends up happening is nothing, and I don’t mean that nobody cares. It’s just that it’s hard to know whose dirt it is and so there’s ongoing issues,” he said.
After four years of effort, Barrett’s group recently received a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to develop a community wildfire plan for the city of Los Angeles.
“I wish that I had been funded years ago, because then it would have been in place before the fires,” he said.
Maryam Zar was president of the Palisades Community Council at the time of the 2023 meeting, where she quizzed the state parks official about parkland overgrown with shrubs and weeds near her neighborhood.
Soon afterward, she said, a crew arrived to clear the land. Another crew came back a few weeks before the Palisades fire began nearby.
While evacuating, Zar saw “open flames on the mountains above us. I thought, there’s no way the street was going to survive.” But her house and most of her neighbors’ are still intact. “I’m not saying it’s because of the brush clearance, but there’s no fuel on that mountainside,” Zar said. “Maybe it saved a few homes.”
Zar believes officials might have done the clearance work because of her council position, and she criticized public agencies for not doing more. “How can the state of California spend so much time and money on fire mitigation, but you don’t do the most basic thing, which is to clear brush on your land that’s near homes?”
Why was a 117 million gallon reservoir “empty for almost a year for minor repairs”?
The Los Angeles Times recently reported:
State to probe why Pacific Palisades reservoir was offline, empty when firestorm exploded
January 10, 2025
The Santa Ynez complex, at 117 million gallons, is among several sources of water in the area…
“It’s completely unacceptable that this reservoir was empty for almost a year for minor repairs,” Gus Corona, business manager of IBEW Local 18, said in an interview with The Times.
I’d be curious to know why it takes “almost a year” to carry out “minor repairs.”
Endangered species like Brauntons Milkvetch should be saved with captive breeding programs. They should never be used as an excuse to stop fire mitigation, dams, reservoirs, power plants, housing, etc.
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
January 16, 2025
Endangered species like Brauntons Milkvetch should be saved with captive breeding programs.
They should never be used as an excuse to stop fire mitigation, dams, reservoirs, power plants, housing, etc.
From the New York Times: https://archive.ph/Fv8d4
From the Los Angeles Times: https://archive.ph/zgpOj
https://x.com/DanielAlmanPGH/status/1880005121146564916
https://twitter.com/DanielAlmanPGH/status/1880005121146564916
More than 74,000 Canadians have died on health-care wait lists since 2018: report
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadians-health-care-wait-list-deaths
More than 74,000 Canadians have died on health-care wait lists since 2018: report
At least 15,474 Canadians died in 2023-24 alone before receiving various surgeries or diagnostic scans. The true number is likely double
By Sharon Kirkey
January 15, 2025
At least 15,000 Canadians died while waiting for surgery or a diagnostic scan over the course of a year, according to government data collected by public policy think tank SecondStreet.org.
The true figure for the fiscal year 2023-24 is likely nearly double owing to a “huge hole” in the data, said SecondStreet president Colin Craig. Missing are data from Quebec, Alberta, Newfoundland and Labrador and most of Manitoba.
The government health bodies that did respond to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests represent 62 per cent of the population. “If the findings from the provinces that did give us data are extrapolated across provinces that didn’t, the total rises to closer to 28,000 people,” Craig said.
The report is the latest “Died on a Waiting List” policy brief from SecondStreet since the conservative-leaning organization began tracking wait-list deaths in the spring of 2018. Since then, the think tank has counted 74,677 cases where Canadians passed away while waiting for treatments. These range from potentially life-saving ones, such as heart operations or cancer therapy, to life-enhancing ones, such as cataract surgeries and hip replacements.
Despite historically high levels of health spending across Canada, “It is clear that money alone cannot solve this health care crisis,” according to the report.
“Canadians pay really high taxes and yet our health care system is failing when compared to better-performing universal systems in Europe,” Harrison Fleming, legislative and policy director at SecondStreet, said in a release. “Thousands of Canadians across the country find themselves on wait lists — in some cases for several years — with too many tragically dying before ever getting treated or even diagnosed.”
“We’re not aware of any government in Canada that tracks this data with purpose,” Craig said. Instead, it appears to be tracked by chance.
“Someone phones up and says, ‘I just want to let you know that my husband passed away, so he no longer needs surgery.’ And the person running the (wait-list management software) clicks on a box that asks why is this surgery being cancelled. ‘Oh, the patient died.’
“We’re not aware of any government that really analyzes this data, looks at it and makes changes based on, ‘We’ve got a lot of patients dying while waiting for procedure X.’ That’s what should happen.”
For their latest report, SecondStreet filed FOI requests across Canada with more than 30 government health departments, health authorities and health regions for cases where people were removed from surgical and diagnostic waiting lists between April 1, 2023 and March 31, 2024 because they died.
Only 12 health bodies in seven provinces provided full or partial data. Alberta no longer tracks the data, Craig said, despite providing information five years in a row.
According to the report, at least 15,474 people died in Canada in fiscal 2023-24 while on a surgical or diagnostic wait list. Waits varied, from less than one week to more than 14 years.
According to the information health bodies provided, 11,682 people died while waiting for an MRI, colonoscopy or other diagnostic scan while 3,792 died while waiting for surgery.
Surgical waitlist deaths were down from the previous year in health bodies with five years of data. Ontario saw a year-over-year decline from 2,096 in 2022-23 to 1,935. Diagnostic scan waitlist deaths also decreased in Ontario from 9,404 to 7,947.
“Obviously that’s a positive sign,” Craig said. “But I don’t think anyone should be celebrating that we still have thousands of people in Ontario dying while waiting for surgery or diagnostic scans.”
Recent data from Ontario Health suggests 378 people died 2023-24 while waiting for heart surgery or a cardiac procedure, he said. What’s not clear is “how many of those patients died because the system simply took too long,” Craig said.
Until recently, Nova Scotia had provided the most robust data to clear up some of the ambiguity, according to the report. Of 532 total wait-list deaths in 2022-23, the Nova Scotia government responded that 50 deaths “involved procedures where delays in treatment might reasonably be implicated causally.” Those deaths included people waiting for bowel surgery, cancer surgery or coronary artery bypass surgery. Of the 50 deaths, 19 people had waited beyond the maximum recommended wait times.
Nova Scotia didn’t provide a similar analysis for its latest data.
“We do have a lot of cautions in the report,” Craig said. “The first thing that we know is that the data suggest that in a lot of these cases these aren’t patients dying while waiting for life-saving treatment.”
“A lot of these cases are things like cataract surgery and hip operations. But we shouldn’t shrug our shoulders, because many of these patients would have suffered in their final years with cloudy vision or chronic pain,” Craig said. “It’s very inhumane to leave someone stuck in their apartment with chronic pain for a couple of years before they get their hip operation and eventually pass away.”
In other cases, “people are dying while waiting for heart operations, cancer treatments — things that could potentially save their lives. In an ideal world governments would beak down the difference between those two data sets.”
The Montreal Gazette’s Aaron Derfel reported last year that two-thirds of Quebec heart patients needing surgery were waiting beyond the medically acceptable delay of 90 days, “with some stuck in limbo for as long as a year while others are dying before ever receiving a call for their operation.”
Nationally, Canadians are waiting longer than they did in 2019, before the pandemic, for “priority” procedures such as hip and knee replacements and cancer surgeries, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
Canada is among the highest spenders in health care. Spending was expected to reach $372 billion in 2024, according to CIHI.
Among other policy recommendations, governments should track, analyze and disclose data on wait-list deaths each year to “remove ambiguity” around deaths “while improving accountability,” the SecondStreet report said.
Endangered plants bulldozed in Topanga State Park
Archive: https://archive.ph/zgpOj
Endangered plants bulldozed in Topanga State Park
By Louis Sahagún
August 1, 2019
Crews for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power recently bulldozed hundreds of federally endangered plants in Topanga State Park, and both state and city authorities have launched investigations into DWP’s actions, part of a wildfire prevention project aimed at replacing 200 aging wooden power poles with steel ones.
Sometime in July, DWP crews used bulldozers to clear and widen a graded road as part of a wildfire prevention project stretching from Pacific Palisades to Lake Encino. The California Public Utilities Commission has identified this area — which includes some of Southern California’s most expensive coastal real estate — as having an “elevated fire risk.” By installing steel poles, DWP hopes to make the power lines more resistant to high winds and fire.
“This project will help ensure power reliability and safety, while helping reduce wildfire threats,” DWP said in a statement Thursday. “These wooden poles were installed between 1933 and 1955 and are now past their useful service life.”
But in doing the work, say state authorities, the crews potentially destroyed hundreds of Braunton’s milk vetch plants, an endangered species whose remaining numbers have dwindled to less than 3,000 in the wild.
The city utility had been alerted to the presence of the endangered plants on July 7 via an email sent by David Pluenneke, an amateur botanist and avid hiker. It thanked him for calling the issue to their attention, according to documents obtained by The Times.
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