Sri Lanka is now a separate nation and a real mess, as they went all "green" and their economy went to hell. When it was part of British India, it was Ceylon.
Extreme green can mean hungry and lean. Of course, so can destruction and greed. Looks like humans are just one big mistake after another sometimes. And I'm not even a tree hugger.
This is interesting. Try to ignore the appearance of the presenter, and I think you'll find this to be an interesting video.
First (?) mass killing (not shooting) of the year this morning. Here is the story: 2025 New Orleans truck attack - Wikipedia The driver had every intent of killing some people to start 2025. Will this ever/ever end???
Nope. Not as long as there are humans. There are 8,000,000,000 people on the face of the planet. This stuff is exceedingly rare...at least in America.
From what I have read, the truck came across the border at Eagle Pass 2 days ago. They’re not sure if it is the same driver but from all indications, the assault came from someone outside the U.S. who pre-planned the event to the tune of making home-made IED’s I’m sort of anxious to hear what the beef was. The Quarter including those who are just there to party is such a mish-mash of people who represent nearly every race, culture and creed imaginable.
There have been a couple of these vehicular terror attacks this holiday season in Europe (England, Germany) by those of Middle Eastern descent. The truth may never see the official light of day.
Thirty years ago, very few people from Maine would have heard about someone crashing into a bunch of people in Louisiana. A big part of the problem is that everyone's news is part of our news cycle today, especially if it's bad or if it can be fit into an agenda.
Not to change the topic, but you brought up something that rang a bell in my mind and it concerns weather in different states. The two different times we lived in Colorado, unless we watched The Weather Channel, we didn't hear about any hurricanes hitting in southern states or the east coast and they didn't hear about our big weather events in the summer or winter. And, people in Colorado didn't really care about the weather in the South/East and people in the South/East didn't care about weather in Colorado. Funny, but we don't hear about what happens in Reno and surrounding cities/towns, and when we visited up there, we didn't hear about anything happening in southern Nevada.
Exactly. And that plays into your "Step away from the news" post, as well as the sense that things are in a general decline. A magnifying glass is applied to the "rare-but-gossip-worthy" stuff that has always been going on, but now is part of the daily news cycle. What we see in the media is now our reality, rather than our first-hand personal community experiences. It's not information, per se...it's social data.
Regarding the New Orleans incident...this is from an article behind a paywall: The FBI said that Jabbar was "not working alone."
I have now heard two different reports, both of which said he was not working alone. One report from the FBI said first it was not a terrorist attack, that was then contradicted by the mayor who said it was. This was then followed by the FBI spokesman saying it WAS a terrorist attack and the shooter was not acting alone. The FBI then said the truck used crossed the border at Eagle Pass on November 2, 2024 and the attack was not the one driving. Another report said that the truck did not cross the border, but was rented in Texas by the suspect. It was an EV so that it could accelerate silently and swiftly and cause more damage due to the weight of the vehicle. All agree there were IEDs in the vehicle and at least two more were found planted around Bourbon Street that did not explode and were deactivated. They are searching for more possible explosives. The ISIS flag found in the truck identifies the attack as an ISIS attack and is probably why it was designated a terrorist attack. There are also reports of an explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck outside Trump Tower in las Vegas. This just happened this morning and details are not forthcoming. The symbolism is obvious though.
Now I see there is a link according to the FBI between the New Orleans attack and an area of north Houston. No idea where @Beth Gallagher lives, but I hope she is not affected.
I haven't heard anything about an attack near Houston. I did see that the driver of the truck in NOLA is from Houston, though. https://www.khou.com/article/news/l...4-b8f9-4b92-bf2d-3cf08efd7679?ref=exit-recirc