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Thanks to an obscure provision of the 1986 Water Resources Development Act, the federal government and the South Florida communities hit by Hurricane Irma have been prohibited from procuring foreign sand for their beach replenishment projects until all other feasible domestic sources have been tapped.

Foreign companies have offered to contain these costs by importing white sand from the Bahamas by barge at as little as half the cost of domestic sand. But thanks to current federal law, these battered communities have had to tell these willing sand suppliers to take a hike, hamstringing local recovery efforts.

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Scientists have long known that there are four taste elements – sweet, salty, sour and bitter – but in 2009, a new savoury taste called Umami was added to the list.

Now, it seems a sixth taste sense could soon be joining them, and it might be able to explain our love of crusty bread, or those midday fantasies about creamy pasta.

People killed in terrorist attacks in 2017: Europe vs. Africa

Syria chemical attack: Assad regime forces behind deadly sarin explosion, finds UN report

Mexico’s vibrant Muslim community living in the Maya heartland

Al-Shabaab stones mother-of-eight to death for adultery in Somalia

Man tried to frame brother for terror offences in revenge over marriage break-up

An Israeli Won Gold in Judo in Abu Dhabi. They Refused to Play His National Anthem—So He Sang It Himself.

French Gov’t Has Paid Out Nearly $600,000 To ISIS Fighters In Syria

Hamas Rejoins Iran’s Terrorist Axis

Boko Haram: Teenage girls survive terrorist plot to use them as unwilling suicide bombers

Criminals Released From Jail in Tunisia Set Sail for Italy

Austria Arrests ‘Butcher Of Pakistan,’ Migrant Suspected Of 70 Murders

Burkas, Niqabs Pose Public Safety Risk

Underwear Bomber Sues to Make Hard Time Easier

Residents in Mesopotamian Marshes prepare to see their homeland destroyed again

HUNDREDS Of Western ISIS Fighters Return Home

Pictures reveal devastation to Philippine city of Marawi after Isis siege

VIDEO: This Is What An ISIS Drone Strike Looks Like

Irish citizen Ibrahim Halawa released from prison in Egypt after four-year detention greeted with cheers at airport

More than 400 British Isis jihadis have already returned to UK, report warns

Saudi Arabia’s crown prince promises country will return to ‘moderate, open Islam’

Crown prince says Saudis want return to moderate Islam

Maryland Retirement Community Only Sold Homes To Muslims

Green Berets Were Chasing ISIS Recruiter When Militants Ambushed Them

The Elkasrawy Affair: Imam Victimized, Islam Misunderstood — And Hizb ut-Tahrir Mistranslates Arabic!

Can Bin Laden Heir Salvage Jihad in Syria?

Jac Holmes: British man who volunteered to fight against Isis killed in Syria

“Islam Will Inexorably Conquer the West”

Royal ASSASSINATION plot: ISIS jihadi Sally Jones told Pizza chef to blow up the QUEEN

AP Covers Up ‘Honor’- and Muslim-Related Aspects of Cleveland Murder

Hamas Tries, Fails to Smuggle Tactical Shooting Gloves into Gaza

Tillerson Lays Out Path To Taliban Negotiations In Surprise Afghanistan Visit

UK Minister Says Killing British ISIS Fighters ‘Only Way’ To Deal With Them

Filipino Troops Liberate Town Overrun By ISIS Militants After A Bloody Five-Month Battle

Isis kills 128 civilians in ‘revenge’ surprise counter attack on Syrian town

Alessandro Meluzzi: “We will soon find ourselves living in a city like Lagos, Nigeria”

Thousands of refugees become targets for smugglers in northern France a year on from Jungle closure

British Isis fighters in Syria must be killed in almost all cases, says minister

Terrorism-Related Cases In Germany Quadruple In One Year

New Rules for Mosques in Italy

Dozens of Egyptian police officers killed by militants during raid

Kabul attack: Shia mosque suicide bombing kills at least 30 people in Afghan capital

Chicago Man Who Tried To Join Terrorist Group Gets 15-Year Sentence

Terrorist ‘Underwear Bomber’ Suing Feds Over Poor Prison Treatment

DOZENS Of Cops Ambushed By Islamist Militants In Desert

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German automotive parts supplier Continental has developed a new speaker-less audio system for cars it calls Ac2ated Sound. Continental says the new system will reduce the amount of weight traditionally taken up by car speakers by up to 90 percent, using surface vibrations to deliver sound, much like a violin.

The trouble with such systems, of course, is that you can’t just buy them if you want them; you have to wait for a car manufacturer to adopt them.

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Ponder the depth of depravity needed to characterize killing an unborn child as ‘healthcare’.

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I missed this story at the time, but earlier this year the New York Times reported that the New York Board of Regents eliminated a requirement that aspiring teachers in the state pass a literacy test to become certified. The Board eliminated the requirement because Black and Hispanic candidates for teaching jobs passed the literacy test at significantly lower rates than white candidates.

Unbelievable.

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Two journalists used an Ouija board to try summoning the spirit of Karl Marx Thursday, seeking solace from the alleged horror of capitalism.

The two women, identified as Callie and Sarah, used the Ouija board as part of a Halloween themed Facebook Live video for Broadly, a women’s news publication of Vice that reports “Sex, politics, culture, witchcraft. Women’s news you thought would exist by now.” Sarah and Callie, who have both dabbled in occult practices, used the segment to explore witchcraft and bemoan capitalism, admonishing their viewers that there was still time to “seize the means” and that the spirit of Marx was needed.

I guess Hitler was busy that night.

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Energy Builders’ launch of the Energy Infrastructure Incident Reporting Center (EIRC) comes two days after more than 80 members of Congress signed a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions concerned with pipeline disruption. The letter decried the “violence toward individuals and destruction of property” associated with some activist activities aimed at stopping pipelines.

“Incidents of eco-terrorism, sabotage, arson, vandalism and violence are on the rise as criminal tactics have become a regular feature of pipeline protests, leaving taxpayers on the hook for millions of dollars and potentially endangering lives, the environment and our national security,” said Toby Mack, president and CEO of EEIA.

That will be an eye-opener.

Black Pastor Says He Was Kicked Out Of A Fancy Gym And Banned For Life For Supporting Trump

Comedy Central’s ‘Broad City’ Treats ‘Trump’ as Curse Word, Blames Him for Lack of Orgasms  Hey, they’ve got to blame somebody — it’s not as if they can admit to being frigid.

Chris Hayes: Trump’s Use Of ‘Strong On Crime’ Is A Racial Dog-Whistle  Remember — if you hear the dog whistle, then you’re the dog.

CNN Panelist: Trump Has ‘Personality Disorder’  So do most CNN panelists, but we’re too polite to say so.

Trump Defends His Education, Joy Behar Claims He’s ‘Turning On His Base’  Joy Behar hasn’t the vaguest notion of who Trump’s base is or what they think.

Ron Reagan: Trump Was ‘Vomited’ Up by Electoral College, Is ‘Sociopathic, Malignant Narcissist’  Actually, a very good case could be made that Ron Reagan is the sociopathic malignant narcissist, as even the briefest review of his life will reveal. He might be qualified to shine Trump’s shoes, but I doubt it. Certainly, if it weren’t for his name, nobody would give him the time of day.

Donald Trump ‘has personality disorder’, says former Republican senator Tom Coburn  So what does it say about Tom Coburn’s Republican Party that only a person with a ‘personality disorder’ can get elected President as a Republican?

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I am fully prepared to believe that Corey Feldman is a pedophile.

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Sounds as if they’re tired of having Political Correctness shoved down their throats.

Ann Frank wasn’t Italian, so I don’t see what the point of the exercise was (other than egregious virtue-signaling).

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If you meet someone claiming to be a witch, the chances of that person voting Democrat are 100%.

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‘Racist’ is the new ‘real life’.

Freeberg gives it a think.

Imagine that we set a whole bunch of famous leaders down and gave them a pop quiz: “What is the purpose of government? What is the State for[?] Then we sort them into buckets.

One common answer would be “the State exists to create Utopia here on earth,” and guys like Lenin, Hitler, Mao, and Obama would be in that bucket. Their Utopias would all look different, and they’d employ different means to get there, but all those guys would agree that their governments are trying to create a perfect world.

Another bucket contains guys like Oliver Cromwell, Suleiman the Magnificent, Charlemagne, and Ferdinand and Isabella. Their answer is something like “government exists to give greater glory to God, and/or punish His enemies.”

A third bucket is full of guys who answered “the purpose of the State is to give me and my entourage the highest possible standard of living” — Genghis Khan, Louis XVI, pick your ancient empire-builder.

A fourth bucket reads “the State exists to keep the natural world in balance.” Egyptian pharaohs and Confucian emperors fit here — they have to do their daily rituals or the world falls out of whack.

A fifth — very small — bucket reads “Government exists to protect its people’s life, liberty, and property.” Here you find George Washington, Jefferson Davis, William Pitt, and (arguably) guys like Pericles and the consuls of the Roman Republic.

I’d argue that the guys in the “state as utopia” bucket are the Left, and the “protect the people’s rights” bucket are the Right. That leaves the vast majority of all governments that have ever existed in the middle three buckets…

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Or, in his case, a Presidential stumble.

Joe Bob Briggs looks behind the curtain.

One of the funniest writers in the sports department where I started my career—a quick-witted guy who should have known better—got promoted to editorial writer. This meant he was responsible for the daily Wisdom Decrees passed down by whoever dwells in those mahogany-lined offices with the big windows that always seem to contain photographs of presidents and home-run hitters.

He lasted three months.

“You can’t pay me enough to have an opinion every day,” he told me when he returned to the safe haven of minor-league baseball and publinks golf tournaments.

I feel the same way, and I don’t even work for an editorial page.

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A new report on transportation equity demonstrates that Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s zeal to build the largest light-rail system in America has harmed the city’s low-income population. While the report (really a PowerPoint show) itself is fairly mild in tone, the interpretation by Dallas Observer columnist Jim Schutze is anything but moderate.

DART light-rail lines, “built at costs in the billions, reach up into Carrollton, Plano and Rowlett — suburban areas that need light rail like they a ski lift,” says Schutze. Meanwhile, “DART does an appalling job of providing mass transit to inner-city, low-wage workers who need it.”

DART isn’t stupid — they serve the areas that pay the high taxes that support their service. The Underclass are graciously allowed to piggyback on that arrangement.

Schutze makes this out to be a debate between cities vs. suburbs, compact development vs. sprawl. But really, it is a question of what is the appropriate mission for transit agencies. Outside of those few urban areas with large downtowns–New York, Chicago, and a few others–most people don’t ride or need transit, so transit agencies have to come up with some rationale for continued subsidies. At one time, that rationale was that poor people needed mobility too. But now, most poor people have cars, so today the rationale is the need to get middle-class people out of their evil automobiles.

I’ve used DART and it suffers from the same flaws as every public transport system: If you’re live and work near a rail line, you’re golden; if not, it’s of no use to you. There are never enough hipsters available to cover the (unionized worker) costs, so it needs massive subsidies in order for fares to be ‘affordable’ — if passengers were charged full freight, minority representatives would scream bloody murder. Transit subsidies are just another way that race pimps buy votes.

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I love these graphical music notation videos.

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Good thing there’s a consensus about global warming. That’s totally proven.

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Just as key congressional panels open new probes into the still-smoking debris of last year’s election, the revelation that Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee paid as much as $9 million for the discredited Russian dossier on Donald Trump flips the collusion script on its head.

Now it’s Democrats’ turn in the barrel.

The explosive report in the Washington Post goes a long way to explaining how the dossier was so widely spread among political reporters during the election. The Clinton camp must have passed it out like Halloween candy to its media handmaidens.

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President Barack Obama’s Justice Department created a “slush fund” of nearly $1 billion using legal settlements with banks and steered those funds to political allies on the left while excluding conservative groups, internal documents show.

The financial institutions, which made legal settlements with the Obama administration regarding mortgage securities that imploded during the 2008 financial crisis, include Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., and JPMorgan Chase.

Public records of the settlement agreements with the Justice Department show that when cash donations to liberal groups are combined with other donations in the form of loans and a separate settlement with Volkswagen of America Inc., the slush fund may have topped $3 billion.

Thousands of Americans Will Scream Helplessly at the Sky on Trump’s Election Anniversary  ‘To these aged eyes, boy, that’s what winning looks like!’ — Henry II, The Lion in Winter

CNN’s Rye Claims Trump Targeting Waters, Wilson Because They Are Black  No mention, of course, of Waters and Wilson targeting Trump because he’s not black.

Left-wing pundits in America need to get over themselves and support anti-Trump Republicans like Jeff Flake  I think the technical term for this is ‘clutching at straws’.

Senator Bob Corker building case for Donald Trump’s removal from office with renewed attack  In your dreams.

Rob Reiner About Trump: ‘I Just Want Him to Go Away’  Gee, I’ve felt that way about every Democrat politician in my lifetime.

Rosie O’Donnell: ‘It’s Taken A Year For Me’ To Adjust to Trump  Judging by his past remarks, Trump has never really adjusted to Rosie O’Donnell.

Rosie’s At It Again–Worries About Surviving ‘Madman’ Trump

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But of course we all know that voter fraud is a myth.

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Good think there’s a consensus.

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Flake is certainly living up to his name.

I think this is the first never-Trumper to bite the dust.

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A company in Brazil faced accusations of racism this week after it ran a toilet paper ad featuring the slogan “Black is beautiful.”

Santher, a Brazilian toilet paper company, released an advertisement for its new brand of luxury toilet paper featuring white actress Marina Ruy Barbosa wrapped in black toilet paper, reported the Telegraph Wednesday. The slogan “black is beautiful” accompanied the ad.

Jeez, there’s no pleasing some people.

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As Microsoft found out in the 70s, if you don’t spread some cash around inside the Beltway the pack will be coming after you next. Politicians have many ways to make you squeal.

Roxane Gay is fed up.

I regularly yell at the television during Tiny House Hunters. I have a vivid imagination but it is not so vivid as to let me imagine living in a home with a compost toilet, nor is it so vivid as to make me comfortable with using the kitchen sink also as the bathroom sink. I don’t want to stand up and hit my head on the ceiling of my house. I don’t want the kitchen table to transform into a bed. I don’t want a climbing wall on the side of my tiny house.

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Your tax dollars at work.

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My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

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Steve Sailer looks at race in America.

A couple of years ago, Coates was awarded a MacArthur Foundation genius grant of $625,000 for his best-selling micro-memoir Between the World and Me, in which he recounted not just one but two anecdotes about people he knew who were the victims of white racist oppression.

In one, a black guy whom Coates had vaguely known in college was gunned down by a policeman.

Eventually, Coates admits the shooter cop was black too, which you might think wrecks the moral of his tale. But that’s not the point; the point is that, no matter what blacks inflict upon one another, white people are to blame.

And that’s not all Coates could remember from his first forty years of life. His memoir also included the celebrated story of how Coates let his little boy dawdle upon an escalator and then a white woman about to crash into the lad said, “Come on,” which is racist.

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Ponder a world in which a lot of people prefer the Middle Ages to now.

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We explore the links between social capital and labor market networks at the neighborhood level. We harness rich data taken from multiple sources, including matched employer-employee data with which we measure the strength of labor market networks, data on behavior such as voting patterns that have previously been tied to social capital, and new data – not previously used in the study of social capital – on the number and location of non-profits at the neighborhood level. We use a machine learning algorithm to identify potential social capital measures that best predict neighborhood-level variation in labor market networks. We find evidence suggesting that smaller and less centralized schools, and schools with fewer poor students, foster social capital that builds labor market networks, as does a larger Republican vote share. The presence of establishments in a number of non-profit oriented industries are identified as predictive of strong labor market networks, likely because they either provide public goods or facilitate social contacts. These industries include, for example, churches and other religious institutions, schools, country clubs, and amateur or recreational sports teams or clubs.

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Our tax system is unfair, at least if you measure fairness by the fact that a very small number of taxpayers carry almost all the income tax burden.

 The top ten percent of earners, those making more than $138,000 in 2015, made 47 percent of the nation’s income, but they paid 71 percent of the nation’s income tax.  The top 1 percent, the people former President Obama decried the most, made 21 percent of the nation’s income in 2015, but they paid 39 percent of the nation’s income tax.

Not only are these people paying their fair share, they’re picking up other people’s shares as well.

The rich people who prose on about how their taxes are too low are free to write a check to the IRS.

Go ahead. We’ll wait. And wait … and wait … and wait….

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Oh, they just loved Big Brother.

Obama and Holder were well trained in the racial shakedown business by Jackson and Sharpton.

Steven Hayward at Powerline reflects.

I’ve always been fond of the old line that “There are two kinds of countries in the world: those that use the metric system, and those that have been to the moon.” Heh. The American disdain for the metric system is one of those little tics that cosmopolite liberals like to point to as just one of many reasons for their contempt for America and its citizens. (They never seem to have the imagination to exploit the cognitive dissonance that might be had from gunowners’ acceptance of 9 mm ammunition.)

I thought we were going to have a vacation day today, but I guess not.

Activist Harry Belafonte: ‘Hitler is Not Too Far From Our Door’

Evening News Labels Lefty Group a ‘Watchdog’ In Anti-Trump Report  Of course — who better to hear the ‘dog whistles’?

Kathy Griffin Becomes Unhinged Over Trump AGAIN  Or, more accurately, STILL.

Bangladesh Bans Two International Islamist Charities

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Protectionism, pure and simple.

That’s why Bob Smith, owner of the Pacific Coast Horsehoeing School, used to train students to be farriers—the technical term for someone who makes and fits horseshoes—regardless of how much formal schooling they had. It’s a good-paying job, one that comes with flexibility and independence. There are no licensing laws restricting who can be a farrier or mandating a certain level of training. If you can find someone to teach you the skill and find someone to pay you to practice it, you’re all set.

At least that’s what Smith thought, until the California Bureau for Private and Postsecondary Education sent him a letter last year. During an inspection of Smith’s records, bureau officials discovered that he had been teaching students who lacked a high school diploma or GED certificate.

The letter informed him by a 2010 state law Smith could face fines or have his school shut down by the state if he accepted students who lacked a high school education.

This sort of shit is why we can’t have nice things. It’s also one of the reasons so many people are moving from Mexifornia to Texas.

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Let’s just cut to the chase and give California back to Mexico. Then they can vote Hillary for President of Mexico and everybody will be happy.

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Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt’s decision to curb a common Obama-era legal practice could keep billions of dollars worth of regulations off the books, according to a new report.

The right-leaning American Action Forum found 23 regulations stemming from “sure and settle” lawsuits “resulted in a total cost burden of $67.9 billion, with $26.5 billion in annual costs.”

AAF looked at 23 major regulations imposed by EPA from 2005 to 2016, and found they resulted in hefty economic price tags. Settlements reached during the Bush and Obama administrations resulted in some of the costliest rules on the books.

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And you thought you had problems.

I’m sure this is somehow Donald Trump’s fault.

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Funny how I never noticed the armed guards at the DMV preventing black people from getting a driver’s license. Must have missed that.

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Apparently mathematics are part of ‘white privilege’. Good to get that cleared up.

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Promises, promises….

I must confess that the thought of Harlem under water is not displeasing. I suppose it would be too much to hope that Charlie Wrangel would be on site when it happens.

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I guess that means freedom of speech is ‘white supremacy’. Good to get that cleared up.

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In the early 1990s, California tax authorities traveled to Las Vegas in pursuit of Gilbert Hyatt, an inventor who earned a fortune as the patent holder of the microcomputer. They staked out his home, dug through his trash, and hired a private eye to look into his background. He’d moved to Nevada in 1991, but California made a claim that the state was entitled to millions of his recent earnings.

What transpired over the next twenty-five years is a story of greed, harassment, anti-semitism, and the abuse of power. And it wasn’t the first time that the California tax agency has strong-armed a former state resident. What’s so unusual about Gilbert Hyatt is that he fought back—and won.

The major difference between taxing authorities and the Mafia is that taxing authorities don’t speak Italian.