Tracker

Not to worry- they won't be around long enough to be memorable.

Putin’s Prison Recruiting Scheme Takes a Big, Desperate Turn ABUJA, Nigeria—Russia’s infamous Wagner Group is freeing hardened rebels held in jail cells in the Central African Republic and deploying them overseas, including in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, two senior military officers in CAR told The Daily Beast. According to the sources in CAR, where armed rebels have controlled large parts of the country for about a decade, dozens of men held in military and police custody for crimes such as rape and murder are now being recruited into Wagner’s local wing, which includes hundreds of fighters commonly referred to as “Black Russians.” Many of the recruits, the officers said, are rebels the military consider to be terrorists because of their unlawful use of violence and intimidation against civilians and armed forces in pursuit of political aims. “Since October, they [Wagner paramilitaries] have been walking into military and police cells and releasing rebels, including those held for attacking Bokolobo village [in southern CAR] in May and for raping women and girls,” an officer who works at the military headquarters in CAR’s capital, Bangui, told The Daily Beast. “Nobody can stop them because the government has given them so much power to act the way they want.” Another military officer told The Daily Beast that rebels held for attacking and killing CAR soldiers during an assault on a military camp in the southeastern town of Bakouma town in April have also been freed by Russian mercenaries. The officer said Wagner paramilitaries told military officials that the released rebels would be working for the group overseas. “They [Wagner] said they needed urgent manpower in Mali and Ukraine,” the officer, who works with CAR’s army, told The Daily Beast. “I think more than 20 people we’ve been holding [for very serious crimes] have been released.” Many of CAR’s high-risk criminals, particularly rebels accused of harming, raping, and killing civilians are held in military and police cells rather than in understaffed and poorly secured conventional prisons. Although the detainees are under the custody of local forces, Wagner mercenaries—who’ve been active in CAR since the government turned to Russia for help in securing arms and paramilitaries in 2017—continue to exert influence over the Central African nation’s security agencies. Among the prisoners released by Russian mercenaries is a notorious fighter from the Union for Peace (UPC) rebel group known by his colleagues as Mohammed, according to a former UPC member. The released rebel fighter is believed to have been involved in the Bokolobo attack in May. He allegedly joined Wagner’s local unit in late October and is now among the dozens of Black Russians believed to have been deployed to Ukraine. “[Mohammed] and four others were accused of raping and killing civilians in Bokolobo and detained for months by soldiers at Camp du Kassaï [in Bangui],” Ali, who was recruited by Wagner Group after quitting UPC last December, told The Daily Beast. “We were surprised to see that he had become a Black Russian and was even shortlisted for Ukraine.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/wagner-group-accused-of-recruiting-prisoners-from-the-central-african-republic-for-russias-war-in-ukraine?ref=home

Balkans and many other ethnic groups who are inter-related have been waging what are essentially civil wars for centuries because someone had an inappropriate relationship with someone else's goat or such and are so frozen in hatred and revenge that it would take a miracle of epic proportions to change those mindsets. One Serbian academic was asked why there is such enmity in the Balkans, and said that the graveyards are not full enough yet.

My extended family deny this.

The EU will seize and use $330 billion of Russian money deposited in EU banks for rebuilding Ukraine

I would think that Corey Mace has the inside track, given how his defence smothered the Bomber offence in the Grey Cup.

Court Rules Mark Meadows Must Testify In Georgia Election Probe ATLANTA (AP) — The South Carolina Supreme Court says former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows must testify before a special grand jury that’s investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and his allies illegally tried to influence the 2020 election in Georgia. The state high court on Tuesday affirmed a lower court ruling last month ordering Meadows to appear before the panel. The former Republican congressman is the latest Trump associate to lose a legal fight over a summons to testify. The South Carolina Supreme Court opinion says the justices reviewed Meadows’ arguments and found them to be “manifestly without merit.” Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who’s leading the investigation, has said Meadows is an important witness. Because he doesn’t live in Georgia, she had to use a process that involved getting a judge in South Carolina, where Meadows lives, to order him to travel to Atlanta to testify. Meadows had originally been ordered to testify Wednesday. It was not immediately clear whether that would be rescheduled. In a petition seeking his testimony, Willis wrote that Meadows attended a Dec. 21, 2020, meeting at the White House with Trump and others “to discuss allegations of voter fraud and certification of Electoral College votes from Georgia and other states.”

We are given memory that we might have roses in winter.

We have a problem. A recent poll found that only about 8% of children under the age of 10 who are eligible for COVID vaccination have had their shots.

I saw much the same thing when the Devine PC government was in its last days in Saskatchewan. As one political reporter described it, " they governed like and army of occupation". They destroyed as much government services as they had time for, rewarded their supporters will all kind of government appointments and even stole computers and furniture from the legislation. I expect a similar performance here in the not too distant future.

Stoopidity is not a crime, but they ought to pay for the rescue.

It’s Sickening How Many Guns Were Sold on Black Friday Somehow, 600-plus mass shootings this year have not dampened the nation’s thirst for deadly weapons. By the time Thanksgiving rolled around this year, the nation had witnessed 609 mass shootings but had not lost its appetite for guns. Data obtained by The Daily Beast reveals that more Americans tried to buy firearms on Black Friday than they did last year. In just the 13 days leading up to the annual post-Thanksgiving shopping orgy, there had been enough gun violence to weary any sane county. Three dead and two wounded at the University of Virginia. Five dead and 17 shot at a gay nightclub in Colorado. Six dead at a Virginia Walmart, including a 16-year-old new hire who had spent his first paycheck on a present for his mother. But come Friday, Americans flocked to buy guns just as they did for Apple AirPods and Revlon One Step hair dryers. The FBI said that its National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) conducted 192,749 background checks—up from 187,585 last year and dispiritingly close to the record of 203,086 set in 2017.

Maybe with wine and cheese.

That is one BIG mother- 6'6" and 315 pounds- big enough to burn diesel. In watching his college highlights, he seems to move well for an elephant and plays right to the whistle- good attributes for a CFL O-lineman career.

In our first Cup win, Collaros was not lighting it up, and Streveler came in at exactly the right moment to run the ball with such authority that the TiCats had to respect that option and hug the line of scrimmage. But it was his running that was the major factor in that win. Prukop has never been a pinpoint passer in the CFL and was brought in specifically to run in critical situations, not pass. If the intended receiver was 10 yards behind the nearest defender, then maybe throw the pass. We will likely never know whose boneheaded decision it was to try that disastrous pass. Even if Prokop ad-libbed it, O'Shea will never state that publicly. or even if it was Buck's idea. Win as a team, lose as a team, but if Prukop is released in the off-season, we will know.

For the benefit of us coots and spouses, you need to be aware of a the "disability" deduction if your arthritis and/or bad knees or other joints significantly impairs your life. Moreover, the spouse can claim the "caregiver" deduction. It doesn't give you back your full functions again, but it helps offset the additional expenses that come with aging, illness and disabilities. You can download it from the government of Canada website and have your doctor fill it out. The deductions are also applicable for many chronic illnesses like IBS as well as terminal illnesses, and can be applied retroactively for several years- three I think.

Doubt it. Even if Musk had the pennies to try to buy Apple's very lucrative music services, the price would be so high that, due to his disastrous Twitter purchase, he would be unable to leverage (borrow the money) the purchase. Moreover, Apple is very unlikely to be interested in selling. Musk is most likely considering setting up a competing service.

Just to add to the miseries of COVID, CDC in Atlanta is reporting multiple cases of alopecia in long-haul COVID sufferers. This may or may not be related to the infection, but may relate to a stress-reaction to a chronic and disabling illness.

Ain't none of us gettin' any younger. Bath tubs can be fitted with grab bars to help in tub entry and exits. I put in a walk-in tub for the wife who has a bad hip. She's not as spry as she usta be, either. I keep telling her that her creaks and aches are just her body's way of telling her that the warranty is almost up.

One of the big problems about major surgeries is that a general anaesthetic compromises the immune system for weeks, even months. There may be a non-invasive treatment for arthritis- a long, hot bath with Epsom salts followed by a body rub with...believe it or not, peanut oil. This takes a bit of time but it does work.

Should older seniors risk major surgery? New research offers guidance -Kaiser Health News. Nearly 1 in 7 older adults die within a year of undergoing major surgery, according to an important new study that sheds much-needed light on the risks seniors face when having invasive procedures. Especially vulnerable are older patients with probable dementia (33% die within a year) and frailty (28%), as well as those having emergency surgeries (22%). Advanced age also amplifies risk: Patients who were 90 or older were six times as likely to die than those ages 65 to 69. The study in JAMA Surgery, published by researchers at Yale School of Medicine, addresses a notable gap in research: Though patients 65 and older undergo nearly 40% of all surgeries in the U.S., detailed national data about the outcomes of these procedures has been largely missing. "As a field, we've been really remiss in not understanding long-term surgical outcomes for older adults," said Dr. Zara Cooper, a professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School and the director of the Center for Geriatric Surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. Of particular importance is information about how many seniors die, develop disabilities, can no longer live independently, or have a significantly worsened quality of life after major surgery.

That's a pretty broad brush- Katz had a shady reputation before becoming mayor, and yet he got elected anyway. You get what you pay for and in Katz's instance, you pay for what you get.

Signs of Another Humiliating Loss Send Russia Into Denial Mode -Getty News Russian forces may be preparing to leave the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which Russia has occupied since the early months of the war this year, according to Ukrainian authorities. Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, said Sunday he believes Russian troops will be leaving the power plant as Ukrainian forces continue to make advances in occupied territories. “Russian servicemen will leave the Zaporizhzhia NPP, as their line of defense is gradually moving towards the borders of the Russian Federation,” Podolyak said in an interview with Freedom TV. Russian news outlets have also been hinting at a possible withdrawal from the plant, Petro Kotin, the head of Ukraine’s state nuclear energy company Energoatom, said Sunday. “There are some signs showing that they might be going to leave the Zaporizhzhia NPP,” Kotin said. “There have been a lot of publications in the Russian press saying that the Zaporizhzhia NPP could be left and handed over to the IAEA's control.”