“The unicorn is in custody” [Darleen Click]
Best line ever heard on police band …
When a caller reported a “unicorn-like” animal galloping down an open Central Valley road, the California Highway Patrol suspected someone was high on hallucinogenic drugs.But then officers met Juliet — a snow-white, 600-pound Shetland pony with a prosthetic horn and a fuzzy pink bridle.
The wannabe unicorn twice bolted from a photo shoot in Madera Ranchos on Wednesday, leading CHP officers on a lengthy, if not enchanted, pursuit. […]
Juliet’s owner, Fresno photographer Sandra Boos, managed to corral the 20-year-old pony in relatively short order. However, the CHP grew concerned when they received another call at 5:30 p.m.: Juliet was loose again and headed toward Avenue 12, a busy traffic corridor between State Route 99 and State Route 41.
This time, “it was a little more difficult to capture the pony-slash-unicorn,” McConnell said.
It took officers three and half hours to round up the pony, using a helicopter with thermal imaging to track down Juliet in an orchard. Then, they needed to use one of the pony’s friends, a horse, to help bring her out of hiding.
The horse whinnied to Juliet, who whinnied back and then ran to her friend, Boos said.
“The unicorn is in custody,” Boos heard on the police radio. As soon as she heard that, she called to tell her 5-and-a-half-year-old daughter, who rides Juliet. Her daughter, Tatum, had been frantic when Juliet ran away, she said. […]
In the past, there have been cases of chickens, sheep, cows, horses and even an ostrich in the roadway.
“First call I’ve ever heard of a unicorn,” McConnell said.
Gonna need a bigger milk carton: Germany ‘loses’ 130,000 ‘asylum seekers’ [Darleen Click]
Well, this is working out well …
Berlin (AFP) – German authorities do not know the whereabouts of 130,000 asylum seekers, the government said in a parliamentary document seen by AFP on Friday.Out of some 1.1 million asylum seekers registered in 2015, “about 13 percent did not turn up at the reception centres to which they had been directed,” the government said in a written reply to a question from a lawmaker of the Left Party.
Friday Fiction: 100 Word Challenge [Darleen Click]
The inspiration:
A story:
“Carpentry?”
“No.”
“Farming?”
“No.”
“Hunting?”
“God, no.”
He looked up from his list, pale eyes hooded by bushy grey brows. She fidgeted under the cool, hard regard.
He glanced down “Any experience with fibers or cloth? Spinning, weaving, sewing?”
“No.” She sniffed, “I am a tenured professor in Gender & Women Studies and …”
“WAS,” he interrupted, “In case you haven’t noticed, the majority of your students, colleagues, and fellow citizens are gone. We’re starting from scratch. What can you do?”
“Um.”
He scribbled on the page, handed it to her, gesturing toward the door.
“Report to Stevens, latrine duty.”
******************************************************
Now, your turn.
Palate cleanser [Darleen Click]
#BlackLivesMatter labels public library racist for not allowing them to be racist [Darleen Click]
BlackLiesMatter demands banning white people from attending their meetings, calls library “white supremacist” for policy barring racial discrimination.
NASHVILLE — Library officials have told Nashville’s chapter of the Black Lives Matter movement that meetings restricting those who attend by race aren’t allowed on public property.The decision has outraged Black Lives Matter members. But Nashville Public Library officials said they’re following a library policy that specifies all meetings at their facilities must be open to the public and news media.
“The library didn’t cancel anyone’s meeting,” said library spokeswoman Emily Waltenbaugh, referring to a Black Lives Matter meeting Saturday that has been moved to a church. “We’re taxpayer funded. We have to be open to anyone any time.” […]
But the group has a rule, said Joshua Crutchfield, an organizer of the Nashville chapter: Only blacks or other minorities are allowed to attend. That means whites are excluded. […]
“Due to white supremacy in our local government, this week’s BLM General Body Meeting location has changed,” a notice posted on the Nashville chapter of Black Lives Matter’s Facebook page reads. The notice says the group’s meetings are “open to black and non-black people of color only.”
#FreeStacy — Twitter’s Orwellian-named @Safety council suspends @rsmccain [Darleen Click]
Stacy responds …
Unexpectedly, and without explanation, my @rsmccain Twitter account was suspended Friday evening. Based on past experiences, my guess would be that this resulted from a complaint by one of the leading “social justice warriors” (SJWs) who have been at war with #GamerGate since August 2014. However, there was no reason stated for the suspension, and who knows? […]This morning I shared some thoughts with a blogger friend who followed the #GamerGate saga:
As I have said for years: Being notorious is not the same as being famous, but it’s better than being anonymous.
That is to say, I don’t often complain about being hated or misunderstood. It comes with the territory. I started out in the news business as a $4.50-an-hour staff writer for a tiny weekly newspaper in Austell, Georgia. Most people have no idea what I did before I got involved in political journalism as an assistant national editor for The Washington Times in 1997, or even have any idea of the work I did there. The vast majority of people who read my blog or follow my Twitter feed have no knowledge of or interest in my personal “backstory.” It’s not about me. I am not the story. I am the guy telling the story, or I am the guy making jokes about the story. I understand that. But I think some people in the New Media era lose sight of this reality.
Politics is like football. It’s a team sport. Until I was in my mid-30s, I was a very partisan Democrat. Bill Clinton (who I voted for in 1992) cured me of my Democrat loyalty. During the 1990s, I began a rather deep autodidactic study of politics, history, economics, philosophy, etc. My politics are conservative, my economics are Austrian, my faith is Christian. It’s that simple — and certain people HATE me for it. But those people hate everybody who is not a Democrat. Fine. I understand that kind of hate, having once been a Democrat myself, but Democrats think of their personal hatred as “social justice.” And so I understand them better than they understand me.
However, it’s not about me. . . .
Breitbart has recently confirmed that Twitter is engaging in shadow banning
According to the source, Twitter maintains a ‘whitelist’ of favoured Twitter accounts and a ‘blacklist’ of unfavoured accounts. Accounts on the whitelist are prioritised in search results, even if they’re not the most popular among users. Meanwhile, accounts on the blacklist have their posts hidden from both search results and other users’ timelines.Our source was backed up by a senior editor at a major digital publisher, who told Breitbart that Twitter told him it deliberately whitelists and blacklists users. He added that he was afraid of the site’s power, noting that his tweets could disappear from users’ timelines if he got on the wrong side of the company.
Shadowbanning, sometimes known as “Stealth Banning” or “Hell Banning,” is commonly used by online community managers to block content posted by spammers. Instead of banning a user directly (which would alert the spammer to their status, prompting them to create a new account), their content is merely hidden from public view.
For site owners, the ideal shadowban is when a user never realizes he’s been shadowbanned.
However, Twitter isn’t merely targeting spammers. For weeks, users have been reporting that tweets from populist conservatives, members of the alternative right, cultural libertarians, and other anti-PC dissidents have disappeared from their timelines.
Twitter, as a private company, has every right to do what they want. However, if they are going to censor or ban on ideological grounds, they should be honest enough to put that in the TOS and let the market decide.
But Leftism and honesty are not well acquainted.
Friday Fiction: 100 Word Challenge [Darleen Click]
The inspiration:
A story:
He wintered on the porch, watching the angry grey ocean. Summers he retreated into his tiny cottage, trading the view for a book, avoiding the summer people.
Her first summer, she waved at him each time she passed.
The second, he learned to wave back.
He endured that winter, the ocean a distant second to his thoughts of her.
For the first time since he returned from the desert filled with fury and death, summer would not find him hiding in the cottage. He absently reached to scratch an itch on a leg that was no longer there and waited.
***************************************
Now, your turn.
Former Gitmo detainee now top Al Qaeda jihadist [Darleen Click]
When Ibrahim al Qosi was released from Guantanamo Bay in 2012, a lawyer for the former Usama bin Laden aide said he looked forward to living a life of peace in his native Sudan.Three years later, Qosi has emerged as a prominent voice of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, appearing in a number of AQAP propaganda videos — including a 50-minute lecture calling for the takeover of Saudi Arabia.
The 56-year-old Qosi delivered a scathing critique of the Saudi monarchy — which appeared online on Feb. 6 — denouncing the Saudi government’s execution of more than 40 “mujahedeen” in January, according to the Long War Journal. […]
Qosi’s call for an end to the Saudi-U.S. alliance came at nearly the same time an Al Qaeda newsletter published a 9/11 “insider account” from a former AQAP leader who was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in June.
Nasir al Wuhayshi, who was once one of bin Laden’s top lieutenants, claimed he got the idea for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks after watching news coverage of the 1999 crash of EgyptAir Flight 990, in which a jihadist co-pilot caused the airliner to nosedive into the Atlantic.
Heck of a job, Barry!
