July 23, 2021

A Baltimore County widow put her mansion on the market. Then sovereign citizens moved in.

https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/baltimore-county/bs-prem-md-co-sovereign-citizens-falls-road-20210722-voivdsl2yfexbea2lep3bcuuk4-story.html

Valued at $1.5 million, the Falls Road home has it all.

Hidden among trees on 2 acres with an elegant outdoor terrace overlooking lush green forest, the 2 1/2-story mansion boasts a stone fireplace and vaulted wood-beam ceilings, six bedrooms and five bathrooms, a deluxe butler’s pantry and indoor pizza oven and large windows across the walls of the 10,000-square-foot space. There’s even a treehouse with a wraparound porch.

It was the dream house designed and built by a prominent commercial real estate broker and his wife in 2005, two years after the pair married. When he died early last year, his widow hired a real estate agent, put her abode on the market and moved.

The phone calls from worried neighbors began in June: There was a chain locked across her driveway entrance. Warnings against trespassers appeared along the property perimeter. A group was spotted unloading furniture and other items from a moving truck.

(Excerpt)

July 23, 2021

This Airline Was Just Voted Best in the World for 2021

https://www.travelandleisure.com/airlines-airports/best-airlines-2021-qatar-airways



Qatar Airways was voted the best airline in the world for 2021, according to AirlineRatings.com.

The Doha-based airline was awarded the top spot based on a host of criteria, including the age of its fleet, passenger reviews, and product offerings, as well as its "commitment to keeping the world's critical long-haul air routes open during COVID-19," according to the site.

In addition to the No. 1 ranking, Qatar Airways also took the top spots for best business class (the airline is known for its Qsuites) and best catering.

"Over the past 16 months, the aviation industry has witnessed some of its darkest days, but Qatar Airways has continued to operate and stand by our passengers despite many other airlines halting operations due the pandemic," Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive Akbar Al Baker said in a statement. "Qatar Airways continues to reach new heights and set industry standards that deliver unrivaled passenger experience because it is in our DNA to do everything with excellence. Our commitment is to provide the highest possible level of health and safety standards both on the ground and in the air, with 5-star service at the core of our business."

(excerpt)

I'll be flying Qatar Airlines in a Qsuite in a week and a half to get to Thailand. Looking forward to it!

July 22, 2021

Stage musicals: What are the most obscure ones that you really enjoy?

I'll start off with some of mine:

Bat Boy the Musical (based on a June 23, 1992 Weekly World News story about a half-boy, half-bat, dubbed "Bat Boy", who grew up living in a cave.)

Blondel the Rock Opera (The title character is a musician trying to score big with Richard the Lionheart, who goes off on one of the Crusades. He struggles to follow him, as does an assassin and a group of monks who sing all of their dialogue in the form of Gregorian chants. Hilarity ensues.)

Eating Raoul the Musical (A couple of "squares", in the late 1960s, want to raise money to open a restaurant. They decide to kill swingers for profit by hitting them on the head with a frying pan. They become involved with a partner, Raoul, their swarthy, sexy janitor, who helps them to dispose of the bodies. However, they soon feel trapped by Raoul and dispatch him too; he becomes the main course. Based upon the film.)

July 22, 2021

2 Men Caught On Camera In Brazen Daylight Theft From Granada Hills TJ Maxx (California)

https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2021/07/20/caught-on-camera-granada-hills-tj-maxx-shoplifting/

GRANADA HILLS (CBSLA) — Two men casually walked out of a crowded TJ Maxx in Granada Hills recently, their arms full with what appeared to be stolen items.

“That looks great,” one man said as video showed them headed toward the door.

One of the men even had an oversized duffle bag on his back.

“They didn’t even run out, they walked out,” Los Angeles Police Department Sgt. Jerretta Sandoz said. “And so, that’s sending a message that we, the criminals, are winning.”

Sandoz is a veteran sergeant and is vice president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League. She blames the brazen act on Prop 47, which lowered criminal sentences for certain non-violent crimes such as shoplifting.

July 22, 2021

The right to bear arms in self-defense is (now) embedded in the Czech constitution

https://www.expats.cz/czech-news/article/right-to-arms-embedded-in-czech-consitution

Prague, July 21 (CTK) - The Senate, the upper house of Czech parliament, has approved the right to use arms to defend oneself and others under legal conditions to be embedded in the constitution as a reaction to the EU's pro-regulatory stance on firearms acquisition and possession.

This right was included in the Senate-proposed amendment to the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms, which is part of the constitution. Senators, therefore, passed the amendment as expected.

According to the authors of the bill, this constitutional change will prevent the right to bear arms from being restricted by common law and will strengthen the position of the Czech Republic in the debates on further EU regulations.

Now President Miloš Zeman must sign it into law. The president cannot veto a constitutional bill against common pieces of legislation.

July 22, 2021

12-year-old boy's head shaved for being 'gay' in shocking video, three family members charged

https://meaww.com/atlanta-boy-shave-head-gay-sexuality-abuse-family-internet-furious-dcfs-remove-custody

A shocking video made rounds on the Internet on Thursday, June 18, leaving social media rattled by the harrowing abuse of a preteen because of his sexuality. Identified as Tyler, the 12-year-old boy from Atlanta, Georgia, can be seen getting abused and beaten by at least four people towering over him while another person films the Instagram live. Tyler is seen on camera wearing a red shirt, with his arms crossed across his chest in an alert stance, flinching every time the man next to him moves his arm. The reason behind Tyler's fear is soon outed as verbal abuse leads to slaps and aggravated hitting from the man next to the young boy.

On July 16, following a month-long investigation by the Atlanta Police Department's Special Victims Unit, three members of the family were arrested and charged with child abuse. They have been identified as Lorkeyla Spencer, 19; Brittney Mills, 35, and Jordan Richards-Nwankwo.

The boy has also been removed from his family's home by the Georgia Division of Family and Children.

“The behavior in this social media post was difficult to watch and is absolutely unacceptable,” the Atlanta Police Department said in a statement.

(excerpt)

An update on the story from a month ago. Glad to see that his abusive family members have been arrested.

July 21, 2021

Amazon's Lord of the Rings TV Show Will Have Nudity But No Sex Scene

https://movieweb.com/lord-of-the-rings-amazon-series-nudity-sex-scene/

According to new reports about Amazon's epic Lord of the Rings series, the new tale of Middle Earth will not feature the powerful villain Sauron in its first season, but it will feature nudity, which has been causing a few ripples in the Tolkien community since it was hinted at a couple of months ago. The latest news on the project, which is well into production saw TheOneRing.net commenting that while the series is likely to see the stories great Lord of the Rings himself at some point, it will not be happening straight away in the billion dollar series. The report's source claimed, "Sauron/Annatar will not be revealed in Season One [going with the oldest axiom of show business 'Always leave them wanting more.']"

Amazon's Lord of the Rings is set in Middle Earth's Second Age, when Sauron comes out of hiding and bears the nine Rings of Power to the free peoples in the guise of Annatar, the Lord of Gifts. While this will still come to pass sometime over the course of the series, it is believed that season one will focus on a time just before that return. The report goes on to say that Celebrimbor, the forger of the rings, will appear in the series, originally to be played by Tom Budge - who has played a ghost of the character in the video games Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War - but the role is now being recast.

The same report has also provided an update on the controversial "nudity and sex" claims made about the series in rumors last month. While it appears that there will be some scenes of nudity in the show, there will be no sex scenes. The report went on, "Nudity is sparse and not sexualized- contrary to earlier concerns: but rather this artistic choice represents very dark thematic material suggestive of concentration camp-type visuals of victims, a harrowing portrayal of the corruption of the Elves by dark powers to ultimately become Orcs [if this plays out fully it will may well be one of the most ambitious things undertaken by this production and perhaps by anyone attempting to adapt Tolkien]." At least that should appease the many who started campaigns to boycott the show over possible sexualization of its characters.

One thing that is clear is the scope of the Amazon project is huge, and as it has already been teased as being like nothing seen before on TV, there is every possibility that it will go on to outshine Peter Jackson's almost perfect Lord of The Rings trilogy, which celebrates its 20th anniversary later this year. Star of the series, Benjamin Walker, spoke to ComicBook.com recently about the show and how much it is going to blow people away.

(excerpt)

I'm something of an absolutist on the subject of Tolkien adaptations being faithful to the source material. Within the limitations of the medium, mind you...Tom Bombadil is absent from them for a very good reason (stops the plot dead in its tracks). This having been said, I'm quite relieved to see that we won't be seeing any sex scenes in the upcoming Amazon series. As for the nudity being spoken of, as long as it's not explicit, it's entirely in keeping with the story. Morgoth (Sauron's boss) created orcs by torturing and corrupting elves. One can easily imagine that under such circumstances they could be naked.

July 21, 2021

Man shoots grizzly bear sow that charged him near trail off Chena Hot Springs Road (Alaska)

https://www.yahoo.com/news/man-shoots-grizzly-bear-sow-134700654.html

Jul. 21—A man shot a grizzly bear sow Monday morning after it charged him and his son in a remote area off a trail near Chena Hot Springs Road northeast of Fairbanks, Alaska State Troopers said.

The injured bear had not been located by Tuesday afternoon.

The man and son happened upon the sow and cub around 11:12 a.m. while walking in a remote area near Smallwood Trail off Chena Hot Springs Road, troopers wrote in an online statement.

"Once the adult male and the sow made eye contact the bear charged," troopers spokesman Austin McDaniel said.

July 21, 2021

Biden's Pistol Brace Rule Would Put Pressure on an Already Strained ATF Division

https://www.thetrace.org/2021/07/atf-national-firearms-act-pistol-brace-application-delay/?utm_source=The+Trace+mailing+list&utm_campaign=6512dd0f8f-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_09_24_04_06_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f76c3ff31c-6512dd0f8f-112434573

President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice is moving forward with a pledge to clamp down on pistol-stabilizing braces after the popular gun accessory was used in the March mass shooting in Boulder, Colorado.

But the plan put forward by the administration this summer will hinge on the efficiency of an obscure division at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that routinely misses its own performance benchmarks. And now, with millions of stabilizing braces estimated to be in circulation, some outside observers are warning the efforts to restrict them could flounder if federal regulators are unable to handle the workload.

The rules, which were proposed in June, would bring stabilizing braces under the purview of the National Firearms Act, an 87-year-old law that imposes tight restrictions on machine guns, silencers, rifles with short barrels, and other weapons deemed by Congress to pose an acute threat to public safety. If the rules come into force, gun owners seeking to attach a stabilizing brace to their pistol would have to obtain approval from the ATF’s NFA Division. That process can stretch more than a year and entails filing an application, undergoing extensive vetting, paying a $200 tax, and registering the weapon with the federal government. Violations can result in a 10-year prison term.

Mark Jones, a former ATF special agent who held various supervisory positions before retiring in 2011, said the rule change could trigger an avalanche of NFA applications for a division that is underprepared. “ATF’s been so poorly funded and resourced over the decades that it doesn’t have the people it needs,” Jones said. “If they just snapped their fingers and said, ‘Tomorrow all of you have to register these weapons or you’re felons,’ it would fail in a huge way.”

(Except)

As pointed out further in the article, there may be as many as 40 million pistol braces in the United States. An agency that already struggles to deal with registering a mere half million NFA items would be completely overwhelmed trying to deal with such numbers.

July 21, 2021

'I've Never Seen This Level of Fear.' Why Asian Americans Are Joining the Rush to Buy Guns

https://time.com/6080988/asians-buying-guns/


(Svetlana Kim practices shooting her new handgun while standing next to Tom Nguyen, instructor and founder of L.A. Progressive Shooters, at the Burro Canyon Shooting Park in Azusa, CA on July 18, 2020. Nguyen founded L.A. Progressive Shooters in the hopes of diversifying the population of gun owners.)

Six months ago, Svetlana Kim was so scared of guns, she couldn’t even look at an image of one without feeling anxious.

If she was home watching a movie that suddenly depicted gun violence, the 47-year-old accountant would scramble to hit the fast-forward button on the remote. If she couldn’t skip the scene, she would shut her eyes, and her husband would gently put his hand over hers until the scene was over. Kim knew it was just a movie, but in those moments, she couldn’t help but feel like she was in the victim’s shoes, staring the shooter in the eye.

“My brain was always signaling danger. I just felt like, it’s here, it’s present,” says Kim, who blames empathy and imagination for her visceral reaction, since she has never personally experienced gun violence. “It was bad like that, and I couldn’t control it.”

That all changed when something scarier came along. Months into the pandemic, people who looked like Kim were being shoved and kicked to the ground, punched, stabbed and slashed, while doing everyday activities like walking around the neighborhood, shopping and riding buses and trains. One after another, unprovoked, racist attacks against Asian Americans being unfairly blamed for the COVID-19 virus started to increase in major U.S. cities. Kim wondered if she could be the next victim.