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During his presentations of a bill that would enter the state of Mississippi into an interstate compact with Arkansas and Tennessee, the Senate sponsor completely omitted that, if passed, the law would create an unelected quasi-governmental entity with very broad powers, including eminent domain. The bill went on to pass the state Senate unanimously on February 3. SB2716, sponsored by Republican Senator David Parker (R-DeSoto), is a 17-page document that creates the RegionSmart Development District (District) and the RegionSmart Development Agency of the Greater Memphis Region (RegionSmart Development).

Turkey has become the primary threat to U.S. interests in the eastern Mediterranean, not Russia, Syria or Iran, said Michael Rubin, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former Pentagon official. Turkey’s military build-up on and around the island of Cyprus should not be tolerated by Washington, and nor should its attempted pillaging of Cypriot natural gas resources to prop up its ailing economy, Rubin said in an opinion piece for the Washington Examiner. Rubin cited Turkish plans to build a permanent military base in Northern Cyprus, which it has occupied since the 1970’s, as stark proof of...

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – The United Nations asked the Turkish government on Tuesday to end the state of emergency in place since July 2016 and grant its human rights office access to the country’s Kurdish-populated region where “massive and serious” human rights violations occurred. A report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said the violations committed by security forces “included killings, torture, violence against women, the excessive use of force, destruction of housing and cultural heritage, prevention of access to emergency medical care, safe water and livelihoods, and severe restrictions of the...

Greetings from a Japan . I have a made for Japan Dell PC / Windows 7 with Windows Media Player as well as Cyberlink Power DVD pre-installed . I've used only the Windows Media Player since buying the PC 4 or so years ago and I'm pretty sure the drive is locked in to region 1 ( don't recall if I ever tried to play a region 2 DVD on it ). My daughter gave me a new external DVD drive that I would like to use for region 2 discs on the Dell ( prefer this over downloading VLC...

Russian military servicemen have taken weapons from a radar base and naval training facility in Ukraine's Crimea region and urged personnel to side with the peninsula's "legitimate" leaders, Interfax news agency said on Sunday. It quoted a Ukrainian Defense Ministry source as saying the Russian servicemen had taken pistols, rifles and ammunition cartridges from the radar post near in the town of Sudak and taken them away by car. Another group of Russian military had also removed weapons from a Ukrainian navy training centre in the port city of Sevastopol, where Russia's Black Sea Fleet also has a base.

BEIRUT (AP) — These are tough times for Hezbollah. The Shiite militant group's uncompromising support for Syrian President Bashar Assad and allegations that it attacked Israeli tourists in Bulgaria are both unpopular in Lebanon, where it is increasingly accused of putting the interests of longtime patrons Iran and Syria over those of its home country. For many in the deeply polarized and war-weary nation, Hezbollah's involvement in last year's bus attack that killed five Israelis, if confirmed, constitutes further proof that the group is willing to compromise the country's security for external agendas. "Hezbollah uses the Lebanese people like sandbags,...

http://ttag.zippykidcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Regional-NICS-History1.png Firearms ownership statistics are about as easy to read as tea leaves. They should be even harder; the Firearm Owners Protection Act (FOPA) specifically forbids local, state and federal government from maintaining any sort of firearms registry. Someone should tell that to the extra-legal Illinois gun grabbers attempting to create a firearms licensing system. While I’m at it, the FBI’s NICS (National Instant Criminal Background Check System) is a clear infringement on our Fourth Amendment protections against illegal search and seizure; buying a firearm is a lawful act. And the ATF’s dictum that the FFL dealers must keep a...

What Kind of American Accent Do You Have?November 24, 2011 Xavier Kun To most Americans, an accent is something that only other people have, those other people usually being in New York, Boston, and the South. And of those other people, half of the ones you meet will swear they "don't have an accent." Well, strictly speaking, the only way to not have an accent is to not speak. If you're from anywhere in the USA you have an accent (which may or may not be the accent of the place you're from). Go through this short quiz and you'll...

Note: The following text is a quote: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASES Sunday, December 20, 2009 United States Transfers 12 Guantanamo Bay Detainees to Afghanistan, Yemen and the Somaliland Region Twelve detainees have been transferred from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to Afghanistan, Yemen and the Somaliland region. As directed by the President’s Jan. 22, 2009 Executive Order, the interagency Guantanamo Review Task Force conducted a comprehensive review of each of these cases. As a result of that review, which examined a number of factors, including potential threat, mitigation measures and the likelihood of success in habeas litigation, the detainees were...

Just throwing out a handful of ideas for discussion: How to develop local chapters/conservative grassroots groups. Develop a conservative platform and a plan for recruiting, training, supporting and electing conservative candidates. Develop ideas for building an effective nationwide conservative grassroots network. How to combat the Fairness Doctrine? Install offshore servers? Private BBS? Email/Phone/Fax lists? Shortwave radio? Local/personal networking? Working with other conservative groups, political parties? Would a FReeper PAC be feasible? Practical? Effective? Would a FReeper 527 organization be feasible? Practical? Effective? How to infiltrate/influence local political organizations? Select and fund delegates for a national convention should our membership decide...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 8, 2008 – North Korea’s assertions of its nuclear weapons capability and the likelihood that it’s proliferating weapons of mass destruction represent a huge security risk for the region and the world, the top U.S. commander in Korea told Pentagon reporters today. “I worry about it every day,” Army Gen. Walter “Skip” Sharp, commander of U.S. Forces Korea, said of concerns that North Korea is exporting its weapons of mass destruction and missile technology to those who could use it against the United States and other countries. “So am I confident it’s not happening? No,” Sharp continued. “But...

Southeast Asian leaders have adopted a landmark charter that seeks to integrate the region even as a contentious debate about human rights in Burma poisoned the atmosphere of the meeting. Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) signed the charter at a ceremony Tuesday in Singapore, which gives ASEAN legal identity for international negotiations, and sets out common rules for talks on trade, investment, environment and other fields. It also calls for the establishment of a human rights agency, but that agency lacks any mechanism for enforcing human rights standards. The charter still needs to be approved by...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 22, 2007 – The regime in Iran actively supports terrorism and is directly involved in efforts to disrupt U.S. and allied efforts to stabilize Iraq, Vice President Richard B. Cheney said during a speech yesterday. The Quds Force, a branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, is trying to establish a terrorist organization within Iraq that’s dedicated to destabilizing the Iraqi government, Cheney told members of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy at a gathering in Leesburg, Va. “Operating largely in the shadows, Iran attempts to hide its hands through the use of militants who target and...

WASHINGTON — San Joaquin Valley residents are voting with their checkbooks and presidential candidates are scooping up the money. So far, count Republican Mitt Romney as the regional winner. Romney raised more money from the valley than any of his Republican or Democratic rivals, newly filed campaign statements show. Boosted by politically active Fresno farmers and Modesto doctors, Romney reported raising more than $100,000 from valley contributors in three months. Romney raised at least $108,200 in individually reported valley contributions, the filings show. This outpaced the $60,100 raised by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and the $34,225 raised by...

CAIRO, Egypt, April 18, 2007 – The situation in Iraq dominates the political landscape of the United States and of Middle Eastern countries, where citizens have “watched developments in that country with growing concern,” U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told a group of American businessmen here today. Speaking to the American Chamber of Commerce here, Gates urged people to put aside disagreements they might have “over how we got to this point in Iraq,” and realize how devastating a failed state in Iraq could be. “The consequences of a failed state in Iraq, of chaos there, will adversely...

Some charge that such a union would eventually override our Constitutional government, our economic system, and even our currency. Can it be possible? On March 23, 2005 President Bush met with Mexican President Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin in what was officially described as a "Summit." The initiative is called the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP). Yet there has been no Congressional oversight or authorization. No funds appropriated. The major debate in the U.S. today is over border security. Our nation is being flooded with hordes of illegal aliens. They are over-burdening our schools, hospitals and social services....

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabia's king warned Saturday that all of the Middle East is threatened by escalating conflicts around the region, from spiraling sectarian violence in Iraq to rising tensions in Lebanon to fighting among Palestinians. "Our Arab region is surrounded by dangers," King Abdullah said at the opening of a summit for leaders of the oil-rich Arab nations around the Persian Gulf. "It is like a keg of gunpowder waiting for a spark to explode." Palestinian factions are fighting each other, and Iraq is slipping into "the darkness of strife and mad struggle," a danger that also...

MOUNT QANDIL, Iraq (AFP) - It took just a few minutes inside the offices of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the mountain village to figure out who was their leader. Ronahi Ahmed was in charge, and the men in the room immediately deferred to the stern-faced woman with long curly hair and an unexpectedly brilliant smile. Although ostensibly a member of the civilian political wing of the PKK, Ahmed still had a pistol at her belt, a reminder of her days as a guerrilla leader. In a part of the world known for the subordination of women, nowhere...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 27, 2006 -- It’s imperative that the United States, its allies and the Iraqi government stop Islamic extremists from achieving their goal of controlling Iraq and the surrounding region, a senior U.S. military officer said on CBS’s “60 Minutes” yesterday. “We have to stabilize Iraq and the broader regional dynamic in order to make the region less conducive to extremism, because if we don’t, the extremist values will become mainstream and we will have a much worse security situation develop in the future,” Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. Central Command, told CBS reporter Lara...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 16, 2006 -- Failure of the coalition and Iraqi government to create a unified, peaceful Iraq would be catastrophic for that country and the region, and would embolden terrorists throughout the world, the directors of the Central Intelligence Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency said here yesterday. Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, director of the CIA, and Army Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the DIA, said that the coalition presence in Iraq is what’s keeping the country together, and an early withdrawal would cause a significant rise in violence....