Tracker

Good enough to challenge for a starting role in Regina.

Florida rabbi arrested in connection with deadly US Capitol riot A rabbi in Florida is now the latest person of interest in connection with the deadly U.S. Capitol riots that erupted on Jan. 6 amid the Electoral College certification. According to WFLA-TV, the U.S. Department of Justice has arrested Michael Stepakoff, of Tampa Bay, Fla., on a string of charges for his role in the U.S. Capitol siege. A criminal complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court of Washington D.C., details the incriminating evidence that led to Stepakoff's arrest. Federal authorities have revealed that there is "surveillance video which shows him standing inside the Capitol building during the raid and a Facebook post the FBI says was made by his wife, which states he was inside the building and asks the public for prayers for his safety," according to FOX-13. Florida rabbi arrested in connection with deadly US Capitol riot - Alternet.org Republican accused of threatening AOC after he warns of 'alternative means' to condemn her remarks Horned Viking 'Shaman' Who Stormed Capitol Now Willing To Testify Against Trump The Capitol decked out in a fur hat with horns is now willing to testify against his former hero Donald Trump at the former president’s impeachment trial, according to his lawyer. Jacob Chansley of Arizona, who calls himself the “QAnon Shaman,” feels that he has been “betrayed” by Trump, who failed to pardon him and others who attacked the Capitol, said attorney Al Watkins, The Associated Press reported. Watkins said in a statement Thursday that Chansley is willing to discuss “whether the words of former President Trump were understood by Mr. Chansley to be nothing short of an invitation to go to the Capitol with the president to fight like hell,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Horned Viking 'Shaman' Who Stormed Capitol Now Willing To Testify Against Trump | HuffPost Canada (huffingtonpost.ca)

One would think that would automatically mean arrest for anyone who says these sort of things, but with a lot of cops sympathetic to Qanon, the wheels of justice turn very slowly if at all.

Absolutely, at least many if them did. A large scale uprising would have justified Trump, or rather have given him an excuse to declare martial law.

This makes it both obvious and imperative that the Democrats pursue Trump with all possible and legal vigour and speed. Once Trump is shown up in court and the US Senate as the cowardly racist and would-be tyrant he lusts to become, much of his mystique will vanish But it also follows that the indictment and trial of Trump will absolutely provoke his zealots to violence.

Six degrees of sedition: Was master trickster Roger Stone behind the Capitol riot? The night before a mob of Donald Trump's diehard supporters laid siege to the U.S. Capitol, longtime Trump confidant and presidential-pardon recipient Roger Stone made his first public appearance in Washington since his trial, giving a pump-up speech at a Freedom Plaza rally organized by a group called Stop the Steal. In a helpful moment of clarity, the emcee for the evening, Stone associate and fellow convicted felon Ali Alexander (formerly Ali Akbar), a driving force behind the events that led to the attack the following afternoon, noted that "It was Roger Stone who coined the term first: Stop the Steal." Stone did more than coin the term. He registered it with the federal government as a political nonprofit more than four years earlier, in 2016, and appears to have a hand in its successor, which was created less than a month before the 2020 election. But while Alexander went on to claim to be the "father of the movement," that too traces to Stone, who had organized not just the 2016 effort, but another one two years later. All of this traces back deep in Republican dirty-trick history, all the way to the "Brooks Brothers Riot" orchestrated by Stone to interfere with the 2000 Miami-Dade County recount and help make George W. Bush president. When Stone, escorted by bodyguards from the Oath Keepers anti-government militia group, delivered the keynote speech at the Freedom Plaza rally on Jan. 5, after showing off his dance moves, in his pinstripe suit and fedora hat, to a hip-hop remix of a song honoring his innocence, he made clear that Alexander had only "revived the Stop the Steal movement." In other words, all of this was, at its root, a Roger Stone production. It appears that Stone bears as much responsibility as anyone — and quite a bit more than most — for the deadly riot that unfolded the next day, though the extent of his influence has not yet come into public focus. Roger Stone created the first Stop the Steal organization in April 2016, raising and spending tens of thousands of dollars for the anticipated mission of defending Trump through the contested Republican primary and later challenging an apparent Hillary Clinton general election win, neither of which proved necessary. That group was shuttered in 2017, but Stone, a Florida resident, reactivated the movement after the 2018 midterms — specifically to protect then-Florida Gov. Rick Scott's narrow victory in a U.S. Senate race over Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson. Stone even got help from Alexander, an itinerant provocateur who came aboard to help recruit for the effort, laying out his vision in a Periscope video, as reported in Right Wing Watch, in which Alexander said he hoped to motivate not just Republicans, but QAnon followers, Democrats and "homeless people in all the adjacent counties" to monitor the vote count. Six degrees of sedition: Was master trickster Roger Stone behind the Capitol riot? | Salon.com

Whatthehell....there are lots of spare people in Alberta. Nobody is really gonna miss a few thousands. Talk about doubling down.

Gonna be an interesting grievance adjudication.

Two Women in Capitol Riot Were ‘Looking for Nancy to Shoot Her Friggin’ Brain’: Docs Two Pennsylvania women were arrested on Friday after allegedly storming the Capitol on Jan. 6—and expressing their intent to kill House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Dawn Bancroft and Diana Santos-Smith are facing three charges including knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building without lawful authority, and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. In a criminal complaint, prosecutors allege the pair were seen in a video trying to exit the Capitol after the riots. “We broke into the Capitol…we got inside, we did our part,” Bancroft, who is wearing a MAGA ski-cap, said in the video. “We were looking for Nancy to shoot her in the friggin’ brain but we didn’t find her.” When the FBI questioned Santos-Smith on Jan. 20, she initially said she only attended former Trump’s rally and didn’t physically enter the Capitol. After agents showed her the video of her and Bancroft, Santos-Smith admitted they went inside but didn’t “have a pre-planned agenda” to do so. She added that when she and Bancroft arrived at the Capitol, they heard protesters saying “they’re letting us in,” which she interpreted as being allowed entry. The pair entered through a broken window—which Santos-Smith said she knew they should not have done. Two Women in Capitol Riot Were ‘Looking for Nancy to Shoot Her Friggin’ Brain’: Docs (thedailybeast.com)

Marjorie Taylor Greene Warned That Freedom Comes With ‘Price of Blood’ in Pre-Election Video -Getty Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) suggested that violence was a means for protecting freedom in a video interview shared days before the 2020 presidential election. “If this generation doesn’t stand up and defend freedom, it’s gone,” Greene said in a live-stream interview on the Pennsylvania Firearms Association’s Facebook page. “And once it’s gone, freedom doesn’t come back by itself. The only way you get your freedoms back is it’s earned with the price of blood.” The video, uncovered by Mother Jones, was a 22-minute conversation between Greene and fringe gun activist Chris Dorr in which she said America would “completely end... as we know it” if Trump and Republicans didn’t win. In recent days, social media posts have emerged in which Greene, a staunch gun advocate, has endorsed the execution of Democrats and said school shootings were fake. She once liked a Facebook post saying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi deserved “a bullet to the head.” Marjorie Taylor Greene Warned That Freedom Comes With ‘Price of Blood’ in Pre-Election Vid (thedailybeast.com)

I'm afraid that many, perhaps even most Americans are afflicted with the "win at all costs/ If you're not cheating, you're not trying" mentality. Societal attitudes take generations to change. Or a widespread catastrophe.

Johnson & Johnson 1-Dose Shot Prevents COVID-19, But Less Than Some Others Johnson & Johnson’s long-awaited vaccine appears to protect against COVID-19 with just one shot – not as strong as some two-shot rivals but still potentially helpful for a world in dire need of more doses. J&J said Friday that in the U.S. and seven other countries, the single-shot vaccine was 66% effective overall at preventing moderate to severe illness, and much more protective — 85% — against the most serious symptoms. There was some geographic variation. The vaccine worked better in the U.S. — 72% effective against moderate to severe COVID-19 – compared to 57% in South Africa, where it was up against an easier-to-spread mutated virus. “Gambling on one dose was certainly worthwhile,” Dr. Mathai Mammen, global research chief for J&J’s Janssen Pharmaceutical unit, told The Associated Press. With vaccinations off to a rocky start globally, experts had been counting on a one-dose vaccine that would stretch scarce supplies and avoid the logistics nightmare of getting people to return for boosters. But with some other competing vaccines shown to be 95% effective after two doses, at question is whether somewhat less protection is an acceptable tradeoff to get more shots in arms quickly. The company said within a week, it will file an application for emergency use in the U.S., and then abroad. It expects to supply 100 million doses to the U.S. by June, and expects to have some ready to ship as soon as authorities give the green light. (Not sure who is going to fall all over themselves to order this stuff)

To state the obvious: most of these guys, their politicians and the morons who voted them in have the collective intelligence of dryer lint.

Fixed that for you.

This "dilemma" is really a testament to the effectiveness of the Bombers scouting and drafting since the arrival of Walters.

Haven't you been watching Star Trek Discovery? All the dilithium has gone and blowed up.

The probability is that there will be no one panacea to fix everything so that we can carry on as before. There will likely be a mix of old and new energy sources, some of which have not yet emerged, but our future will have to include changes in how we do things- smaller vehicles, more energy-efficient buildings and initiatives such as telecommuting and more localized sourcing. This will not be quick, easy or painless. Some 30 years ago, a Boston-based energy auditing and retrofitting firm approached Hyd0 Quebec with an offer. They offered to audit all commercial buildings for free (!) and recommend efficiencies in exchange for 50% of the savings in electrical consumption. Never got to first base.

The Chinese government has announced that they have developed an almost-instant, 100% accurate swab test for COVID. The bad news is that its a anal swab. The really bad news is that it has to reach the back of your throat.

QAnon and evangelicals: Republicans baptized in crazy Donald Trump is out, but parts of the Republican Party warmly embrace his dark legacy of white supremacy, the crazy QAnon conspiracy and civil war wrapped in faux Christianity. Like Trump, these fake Christians reject turning the other cheek in favor of threatening or promoting violence. The problem here isn't partisan politics, but public mental health. DCReport has covered extensively the mental-health debacle thanks to Dr. Bandy X. Lee, Harper West and other experts on how delusions spread like viruses, with Trump being a carrier. The evidence of craziness seems to be found entirely in the Republican Party. We looked for, but have yet to discover any Democratic Party leaders pushing baseless conspiracy theories or urging civil war. Here are some of the ways that Republican leaders reveal their affinity for the anti-democratic nature of Trumpism and QAnon, its attendant conspiracy theory: In California, the Sacramento County Republican Party elected to its Central Committee a Proud Boys member who has advocated violence. "Illegal immigrants should have their heads smashed into the concrete," a 2018 post by an antifascist group quotes Perrine as saying. Perrine didn't deny this call to violence, he only insisted that he's not a racist. He told the newspaper, "They can call me a Nazi all they want, and I know I have plenty of friends of all races that don't always agree with me, but they still love me. "The Proud Boys that I affiliate with are all working men, all married men, they all have good jobs, they all believe in God." Only after The Bee reported this did some Republicans in the California capital come to their senses and demand Perrine's ouster. Oregon's Republican Party this month aligned itself with conspiracy theories as well as denouncing all 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for inciting the murderous attack on our Capitol. Texas' GOP uses a QAnon conspiracy phrase—We Are The Storm—in its new logo. QAnon and evangelicals: Republicans baptized in crazy | Salon.com

Former KGB spy makes explosive claims Donald Trump A former spy for the KGB is making explosive claims about Russia's efforts to "cultivate" former President Donald Trump as an intelligence asset. In an interview with the Guardian, former KGB official Yuri Shvets claims that the then-Soviet government starting in the 1980s began to see Trump as a potential instrument for spreading anti-NATO propaganda. In fact, Shvets says that Soviet agents even planted the idea of running for office in Trump's head when he visited St. Petersburg and Moscow in 1987. "For the KGB, it was a charm offensive," he explains. "They had collected a lot of information on his personality so they knew who he was personally. The feeling was that he was extremely vulnerable intellectually, and psychologically, and he was prone to flattery." Shortly after Trump's trip to the USSR, he took out a major advertisement in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe, in which he questioned why America should be paying for the security of NATO countries. "The bizarre intervention was cause for astonishment and jubilation in Russia," the Guardian writes. "A few days later Shvets, who had returned home by now, was at the headquarters of the KGB's first chief directorate in Yasenevo when he received a cable celebrating the ad as a successful "active measure" executed by a new KGB asset." Although Trump throughout his first term was notoriously friendly with Russian President Vladimir Putin, he also took multiple actions that angered the Kremlin, such as his decision to launch missiles into Russian ally Syria in 2017 for its use of chemical weapons on civilians. Author Craig Unger, who used Shvets as a key source for his upcoming book American Kompromat, tells the Guardian that Russia did not have some grand long-term conspiracy to make Trump president, but rather lucked into Trump's presidency through a series of unlikely events. "It was not this grand, ingenious plan that we're going to develop this guy and 40 years later he'll be president," he says. "At the time it started, which was around 1980, the Russians were trying to recruit like crazy and going after dozens and dozens of people." Former KGB spy makes explosive claims Donald Trump - Alternet.org GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert mocks a mass shooting survivor for not being 'tough' Colorado Republican Rep. Lauren Greene, who has previously expressed support for QAnon, mocked Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg on Thursday evening on Twitter. Hogg, who became a prominent activist after the attack on his high school killed 17 people, had responded to news that fencing around the U.S. Capitol will become permanent following the Jan. 6 insurrection. Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has also promoted QAnon, had recently come under renewed criticism when reporters dug up her disturbing past social media posts indicating her support for executing officials such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. A video also re-emerged from before her time in office when she confronted Hogg in Washington, D.C., over his support for gun control. As she called after him on the street, she told him she was permitted to carry a concealed firearm. Boebert, who was tagged in Hogg's tweet, mocked him in an apparent reference to the video, for supposedly not being "tough": GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert mocks a mass shooting survivor for not being 'tough' - Alternet.org

I seem to recall that in Sweden, when they tested hydrogen tanks but for cold weather, they installed a low-output electric heater on the outside of the tank(s) to keep the contents from gelling.

MAGA Supporter Arrested Yards From Capitol With Gun, Ammo, ‘Stop the Steal’ Paperwork Dennis Westover, 71, was arrested “in the middle of an intersection” near the Rayburn House Office Building with a gun, ammo, and a list of lawmakers, authorities said. Extremist with pipe bombs, 49 guns and "white privilege" card plotted to keep Trump in power: FBI A California man accused of being a right-wing extremist faces dozens of federal and state charges after he was arrested with a cache of weapons and text messages appearing to threaten Democrats and social networks, according to the FBI. Ian Rogers, 44, was arrested on weapons charges after local law enforcement and FBI agents found five pipe bombs, bombmaking materials, 49 firearms, and thousands of rounds of ammunition during a raid of his Napa County home and auto repair shop, according to an FBI affidavit filed on Tuesday. Some of the guns appear to have been modified, including one that was intended to look like a Nazi-era machine gun and appears to be "capable of firing fully automatic," the complaint said. Investigators also found a Nazi flag, according to prosecutors. Rogers admitted that he built the pipe bombs but claimed they were for "entertainment purposes only," the FBI said. But investigators found messages suggesting he planned to "attack Democrats and places associated with Democrats in an effort to ensure Trump remained in office." "I want to blow up a democrat building bad," he wrote in one text message on Jan. 10, days after the deadly Capitol riot, according to the affidavit. "The democrats need to pay," he wrote in another, "let's see what happens, if nothing does I'm going to war." "I hope 45 goes to war if he doesn't I will," he said in another message, according to the complaint. Rogers also expressed his intent to attack Facebook and Twitter, which banned former President Donald Trump in the wake of the riot and are both based in Northern California. "We can attack Twitter or the democrats, you pick," he texted someone else, according to the FBI. The other person suggested they instead "go after" liberal billionaire George Soros, who has been a frequent target of right-wing and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

Man who targeted Gov. Newsom found with 'fully operational' pipe bombs: FBI A California man at the center of a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigation is now facing multiple charges following the discovery of "a trove of pipe bombs and firearms at his home and business," according to the San Francisco Examiner. A criminal affidavit filed by FBI Special Agent Stephanie Minor, who is assigned to the bureau's San Francisco Field Office's Domestic Terrorism Squad, has confirmed the man to be 44-year-old Ian Benjamin Rogers, of Napa County, CA. According to Minor, Rogers was "found in possession of five pipe bombs, 49 firearms, and two dozen ammunition boxes containing thousands of rounds." A bomb technician for the bureau also confirmed the explosives in Rogers' possession were "fully operational." Along with the weapons, Rogers had a copy of "The Anarchist Cookbook" and other items the affidavit alleges could be "used to manufacture explosive devices." Investigators also noted that Rogers was in possession of a "White Privilege Card" featuring the phrase "Trumps Everything." An image of the card, which had the name "Scott Free" on it, was also included in the affidavit. "Several of the firearms, including what appears to be a kit-built replica MG-42 belt-fed machine gun, appear to be capable of firing fully automatic," according to the allegations in the affidavit. (Just in case you thought the insanity in the US was over)

You may not know that in the 1920's, Los Angeles had a widespread fully functional electric bus system. GM bought it and then shut it down, leading to a proliferation of automobiles and triggering a massive urban sprawl.

The point of the carbon tax and generally raising the price of petroleum is to encourage people and corporations to use the petroleum products more wisely. We do not need big honking SUVs. or poorly insulated buildings or leave lights on all the time. Persuasion is well and fine, but financial pressure is effective. You get more with a kind word and a gun than you get with a kind word.