Blue Horseshoe

Teens accused of killing retired police chief laugh, flip off victim’s family in court ....Two Las Vegas teens accused of fatally running over a retired police chief laughed at each other, smiled, and seemingly flipped off their victim’s family during a court hearing earlier this week.....Jesus Ayala, 18, and Jzamir Keys, 16, were back in court on Tuesday more than two months after they allegedly recorded themselves intentionally plowing into Andreas Probst, a 64-year-old retired police chief, who was out on a morning bike ride. The teens’ antics began when they sat down for the hearing in Clark County court, covering the right side of their faces to hide themselves from the cameras before appearing to cover their mouths to suppress their laughter....The teens, who were both minors when Probst was killed, were charged with murder and are being tried as adults....Probst’s family slammed the teens’ appalling actions, saying they “really had no remorse.”....“How can you sit there after taking a man’s life, and act like such an entitled p—k?” Taylor Probst, Andreas’ 27-year-old daughter, told reporters outside the courthouse. “They really had no remorse, that this is just a game to them.” The public defender also said he is concerned about finding fair jurors for the case because of the viral media attention, which angered Probst’s widow......“It was your people who put it in the media first, your clients are the ones that put that on social media,” Crystal Probst said, referring to the in-car view of the horrific August killing.....“They were just trying to mad-dog us and intimidate us, which didn’t work,” Taylor Probst added. .....“You think this juvenile [expletive] is gonna do some [expletive]? I’ll be out in 30 days, I’ll bet you,” Ayala told officers after he was arrested in September....In bodycam footage released Monday, the 18-year-old asked the officer whether the crash was “really that serious.”....“Is it really that serious, like for real, over supposedly me crashing a car?” Ayala asked the officer transporting him following his arrest.....“You think I’m gonna come out on the news?” Ayala later asked the officer.....“It won’t be for anything good, it won’t make your mama proud,” the officer responded....Taylor Probst blames Ayala’s and Keys’ families as the main people who failed the teens.....“A multitude of different people failed, but I think ultimately the parents on all ends. They’re the ones that failed.” https://nypost.com/2023/10/25/news/las-vegas-teens-accused-of-killing-andreas-probst-laugh-flip-of-victims-family-during-court-hearing/

GREEKS AND EGYPTIANS DEMAND AN END TO THE FALSIFICATION OF QUEEN CLEOPATRA'S HISTORY: ALMOST 60K SIGN THE PETITION TO STOP NETFLIX'S NEW DOCUMENTARY Following the release of the trailer for Netflix's new series "Queen Cleopatra," produced by Jada Pinkett Smith, wife of Will Smith, a petition to cancel the show has gained significant traction online. Over 60,000 people have already signed the petition, which calls for the cancellation of the show due to concerns surrounding historical inaccuracies and cultural appropriation. Critics argue that the series, which chronicles the life of the last pharaoh of ancient Egypt, Cleopatra VII, is riddled with historical inaccuracies that perpetuate misconceptions about the real origin of the Queen. The contentious series has spurred heated discussions on social media about historical revisionism, racism, supremacism, and ethnicity. Additionally, concerns have been raised about the casting of the main character, with some arguing that the actress chosen to play Cleopatra is not representative of the historical figure's ethnicity. Maha Shehata and Aikk Yasser organized the petition to halt the upcoming documentary because it was "falsifying history." The creators of the petition claim that Egyptians who believed that Egyptian history was being misrepresented were responsible for its creation. A group's desire to claim Egypt's history and deprive the true Egyptians of it is being pushed via the pseudoscience known as “afrocentrism.” They are still trying to fabricate history using fraudulent articles and no supporting proof, according to the petition's opening statement. Netflix has yet to issue an official response to the petition and the show is still set to premiere in the upcoming weeks. The controversy surrounding the show highlights the ongoing debate around the importance of historical accuracy and cultural representation in film and television productions. It remains to be seen whether Netflix will address these concerns or if the backlash will have any impact on the show's release.....Cleopatra VII, the last pharaoh of ancient Egypt, was a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, which descended from Ptolemy I, a Macedonian Greek general who served under Alexander the Great. As a result, some argue that Cleopatra's ancestry was primarily Greek, and thus, she should not be portrayed as a black queen. Others, however, assert that presenting Cleopatra as a black queen could contribute to a more inclusive and diverse representation of historical figures in film and television. https://www.thearchaeologist.org/blog/greeks-and-egyptians-demand-an-end-to-the-falsification-of-queen-cleopatras-history-almost-60k-sign-the-petition-to-stop-netflixs-new-documentary ******** So a huge part of this issue Netflix is categorizing this as a "documentary" or a "docu-drama" If this was some kind of "reimagining" as Brett Cooper points out, then you have an entirely different situation. But it's not. But you can't just rewrite history because you feel like it. Also you can't have the same political ideology ( the radical left) gate keeping on the issue of "cultural appropriation" when it serves them, and then just ignores stuff like this because it doesn't fit their personal agenda. Think about it, when everything is streaming and digital and no one has hard copies of books, music and film anymore, then what is going to stop the woke agenda from changing and "fixing" everything they find offensive?

Multiple synchronized videos show a projectile, previously identified by Israeli officials as a Palestinian rocket, launching from Israel and detonating near the Israel-Gaza border. The video shows a projectile streaking through the darkened skies over Gaza and exploding in the air. Seconds later, another explosion is seen on the ground....The footage has become a widely cited piece of evidence as Israeli and American officials have made the case that an errant Palestinian rocket malfunctioned in the sky, fell to the ground and caused a deadly explosion at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City.....But a detailed visual analysis by The New York Times concludes that the video clip — taken from an Al Jazeera television camera livestreaming on the night of Oct. 17 — shows something else. The missile seen in the video is most likely not what caused the explosion at the hospital. It actually detonated in the sky roughly two miles away, The Times found, and is an unrelated aspect of the fighting that unfolded over the Israeli-Gaza border that night. The Times’s finding does not answer what actually did cause the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital blast, or who is responsible. The contention by Israeli and American intelligence agencies that a failed Palestinian rocket launch is to blame remains plausible. But the Times analysis does cast doubt on one of the most publicized pieces of evidence that Israeli officials have used to make their case and complicates the straightforward narrative they have put forth..... The Al Jazeera video footage was shared three times by the Israel Defense Forces on X, formerly known as Twitter. In the posts, the Israeli military identified the moving aerial object as a “rocket aimed at Israel” that “misfired and exploded” at nearly the same time as the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital blast. Spokesmen for the Israeli military also explicitly identified this munition as the misfired rocket that caused the explosion in interviews with CNN and the BBC on Oct. 18 and in an interview with India Today on Oct. 19.....Numerous media outlets have shown the video footage and several have cited it as evidence that a Palestinian rocket hit the hospital....But The Times concluded that the missile in the video was never near the hospital. It was launched from Israel, not Gaza, and appears to have exploded above the Israeli-Gaza border, at least two miles away from the hospital.... https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/24/world/middleeast/gaza-hospital-israel-hamas-video.html

Hamas’s Hospital Lie and the Laws of War ....The jihadists directly target civilians, which is a war crime. But they want to deny Israel the right of self-defense by claiming any incidental civilian casualties in Gaza are a crime.....At first the media took Hamas at its word: 500 dead from an Israeli strike. The BBC explained on air that the Israelis “said they are investigating, but it is hard to see what else this could be, really, given the size of the explosion, other than an Israeli airstrike, or several airstrikes.”...Headlines have since changed, but the world received the story essentially as Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) put it on Twitter: “Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that.” She also blamed Mr. Biden for not coercing Israel into a cease-fire, as Hamas would no doubt like to see. We can now have confidence that the initial story was false. A White House National Security Council spokesman confirms that its “current assessment, based on analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts and open source information, is that Israel is not responsible for the explosion at the hospital in Gaza.” Israeli drone footage and an intercept of a call between Hamas members add to the evidence. “I am telling you this is the first time we see a missile like this falling, and so that’s why we are saying it belongs to Palestinian Islamic Jihad,” one Hamas member began.....“It’s from us?” the other answered....“It looks like it. They are saying that the shrapnel from the missile is local shrapnel and not like Israeli shrapnel.” Hamas blamed the attack on Israel, but its story doesn’t add up. Any observer can now see the hospital is still standing. Instead, the parking lot outside has been hit, with much evidence of fire damage but not the impact crater typical of Israeli airstrikes. The signs point to a long-range rocket from Gaza that fell before using up its accelerant....Hamas may still call this a success: Its propaganda held up long enough to set the Middle East ablaze. An angry mob took to the Ramallah streets to protest Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, for not doing enough to help Hamas. A mob tried to storm the Israeli embassy in Jordan....Mr. Abbas and Jordan’s King Abdullah, who receives more than $1 billion in annual U.S. aid, canceled a meeting with Mr. Biden over the hospital blast. On Wednesday the U.S. intercepted two attack drones targeting an Iraqi air base where U.S. troops are located. https://www.wsj.com/articles/gaza-hospital-hamas-israel-palestine-president-biden

In California, Safe Parking Lots Offer a Haven for the ‘Mobile Homeless’ .....One of the fastest growing segments of America’s homeless population is people who live in their cars, R.V.s or other vehicles.....In many ways, it’s a sign of the worsening squeeze on the nation’s middle class. Compared with those living in tents and shelters, the so-called mobile homeless are more likely to have jobs or to be actively looking for work, a U.C.L.A. study found. Many lost their homes after being unable to afford rent or their mortgage, and had to move into their most valuable possession. But living in a car comes with risks — of burglary, harassment and more. That has led to the creation of safe parking lots, designated places for people living in their vehicles to stay overnight. Dozens of such lots, often outside of churches, have opened across the nation in the past five years, a testament to the severity of the homelessness crisis.....“Cities aim to build affordable housing, but the timeline for doing so is measured in years,” Rukmini Callimachi, a housing reporter for The Times, told me. “The question becomes: What do you do with the people who are right in front of you?” Rukmini just published an article about these lots and the people who need them, most of whom have some kind of income but are stuck in expensive housing markets. She shadowed a social worker in Washington State who makes more than $72,000 a year, but lives in her car.....But even with the growth of these programs, only a fraction of the tens of thousands of people living in their cars across the country can be accommodated. And some cities are cracking down on people sleeping in their cars. The number of statutes restricting living in vehicles has increased 213 percent since 2006, according to a 2019 study by the National Homelessness Law Center. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/19/us/homeless-parking-lots.html

To be fair, there might not be enough space there. Too full of empty vodka bottles and discarded Little Debbie's snack cake wrappers. Definitely no room in the bathroom, there's someone passed out on the floor there.

The best platform is the one you train on regularly and you have built proficiency for it over time. What's interesting is the gun debate in this country is effectively over. More firearms have been legally sold in the past four and a half years than in any other period in recorded American history. Something Bill Burr said, a while back, actually made some sense. His argument was that firearm ownership, in an ideal sense, should come in tiers. When you come of legal age, you start with a 22, a single barrel shotgun, a revolver. You prove you are competent and rational and responsible for a few years, then you graduate to a pump action shotgun , a bolt action rifle, etc. Then, after more years, and a good track record, you can graduate to getting an AR-15 or AK47 type platform. I consider that stance mostly reasonable. The core problem is Team Blue and the DNC and the gun grabbers would take that kind of position, and try to angle it and manipulate it to take all guns period. This is where we are at in this country. Some defenses over certain gun issues, even though I am Pro2A, I don't see some of them as totally reasonable. However I also understand that if each and every gun law proposed isn't challenged, then it start the dangerous slippery slope to disarm everyone period. So when the activist radical leftists in here say that no one making public policy wants to compromise - They are removing a very critical set of the overall context while making a single isolated point that is actually true. Only ONE SIDE of the political spectrum is trying to Defund The Police, bail out criminals, empty prisons for "equity", reduce charges for violent felons and enable pure lawlessness and the complete destruction of many communities sense of basic civil order. You can't turn every day working class people into prey, with BS public policy, then try to disarm them at the same time, while spitting on them while the tax payer dollars of those rank and file folks PAY for the armed highly trained security that protects the idiots who come up with that ridiculous corrupt public policy in the first place.