Friday, September 12, 2014

19 Of The Most Evil Women In History RANT LIFESTYLE | BY JAKE ROSIN POSTED: AUGUST 5, 2014

http://www.rantlifestyle.com/2014/08/05/10-of-the-most-evil-women-in-history/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=Outbrain&utm_term=Title1#slide5

19 Of The Most Evil Women In History

RANT LIFESTYLE | BY JAKE ROSIN
POSTED: AUGUST 5, 2014

San Diego cabbies cry foul over body odor test AP

Cab driver Martin Salami looks down as he talks about new ordinances facing drivers at a depot near the airport Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2014, in San Diego. Airport inspectors are judging how taxi drivers smell, a practice that some drivers say may lead to discrimination against immigrants. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Body odor is among 52 criteria that officials at San Diego International Airport use to judge taxi drivers. Cabbies say that smacks of prejudice and discrimination.

For years, inspectors with the San Diego Regional Airport Authority run down their checklist for each cabbie — proof of insurance, functioning windshield wipers, adequate tire treads, good brakes. Drivers are graded pass, fail or needs fixing.

Anyone who flunks the smell test is told to change before picking up another customer.

Leaders of the United Taxi Workers of San Diego union say the litmus perpetuates a stereotype that predominantly foreign-born taxi drivers smell bad. A 2013 survey of 331 drivers by San Diego State University and Center on Policy Initiatives found 94 percent were immigrants and 65 percent were from East Africa.

Drivers wonder how inspectors determine who reeks. Driver Abel Seifu, 36, from Ethiopia, suspects they sniff inconspicuously during friendly conversations in the staging area. Airport authority spokeswoman Rebecca Bloomfield said there is "no standard process" to testing.

Others drivers question how inspectors distinguish between them and their cars. The checklist has a separate item for a vehicle's "foul interior odors," which Bloomfield says may include gasoline, vomit or mildew.

"If they want to bring their smell detector, they can use it to test the customers and the drivers," said driver Negus Gebrenarian, 39, from Ethiopia. He, like other drivers, said the stench is just as likely to come from the back seat as it is from the front.

The airport authority says it is enforcing a policy of the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System, which regulates taxis throughout the region, that prohibits foul-smelling drivers and promotes regular bathing. It also says the practice is about satisfying customers.

"Taxi drivers are often the first impression that travelers receive when arriving into San Diego and we want to encourage a positive experience," Bloomfield said. Only about three drivers fail to get a passing grade each year, she said.

Inspectors have been smelling drivers for years. There was no controversy until a union employee waded through a 568-page airport board agenda and noticed the checklist, which had been approved in July for revisions unrelated to the body odor test. KPBS reported on the practice last week.

San Diego's policy appears to be unusually explicit about sniffing out smelly cabbies. Chicago requires that drivers be "clean and neat in their appearance." New York City's wording is similarly broad.

Seattle long evaluated cabbies for body odor associated with infrequent bathing and not washing clothes but dropped that test last month for a more general requirement on cleanliness.

"The industry didn't like it and they felt that we were kind of overstepping: Why are we dictating to them? We don't tell city employees that you've got to shower more often," said Denise Movius, Seattle's deputy director of finance and administrative services.

Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the 18,000-member New York Taxi Workers Alliance, said her face reddened with anger and dismay when she learned about the San Diego practice. She suggested the airport leave it to customers to complain about body odor.

"What a dehumanizing way to treat your workers," she said.

Travelers arriving in San Diego on Wednesday were mixed.

Sue Beneventi, 70, thinks cabbies are getting picked on.

"If you're going to say cab drivers, shouldn't you also say waitresses and anyone else who deals with the public?" she said after returning from San Antonio.

Daniel Johnson, an 18-year-old Marine who came from Flint, Michigan, said it's fair to grade on body odor, especially considering the $70 fare to get to his base. He has felt trapped in smelly cabs in other cities.

"The smell puts a sour expression on your face and you're thinking I just don't want to be in here," he said.

Thursday, September 11, 2014

UK female jihadists run ISIS sex-slave brothels

ISIS chiefs have reportedly given British women prominent roles in the ultra-religious all female militia because they see them as the most committed of the foreign female fighters. (Photo credit: Twitter)

Text size A A A

Staff Writer, Al Arabiya News
Friday, 12 September 2014

Startling details have surfaced of British female jihadists forcing captured Iraqi women into sexual slavery at brothels run by militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), British media reported Thursday.

The Brothels, operated by the female “police force” called the al-Khanssaa Brigade, have been set up for the use of ISIS militants, according to the Daily Mirror.

Thousands of Iraqi women have already been forced into sex slavery at the brothels , with as many as 3,000 women and girls been taken captive from the Yazidi tribe in Iraq over the course of the militants’ offensive across the region, according to the daily.

“These women are using barbaric interpretations of the Islamic faith to justify their actions,” the Mirror quoted a source as saying. “They believe the militants can use these women as they please as they are non-Muslims. It is the British women who have risen to the top of the Islamic State’s Sharia police, and now they are in charge of this operation.”

ISIS chiefs have reportedly given British women such prominent roles in the ultra-religious all female militia because they see them as the most committed of the foreign female fighters.

A key figure among the female police force is Aqsa Mahmood, 20, of Glasgow. At least three other British females have been identified as members of the group, the Mirror reported.

‘Al-Khanssaa is a Sharia law police brigade. This is ISIS‘ female law enforcement,” Melanie Smith, a research associate at King's College's International Centre for the Study of Radicalization, told The Sunday Telegraph. 'We think it’s a mixture of British and French women but its social media accounts are run by the British and they are written in English.”

The Daily Mail, meanwhile, reported that more and more young British women are leaving the United Kingdom to join militants, and many have formed intense friendships with ISIS fighters.

They include twins Salma and Zahra Halane, 16, from Manchester, and mother Khadijah Dare, 22, who is married to a Swedish militant.

"It is as bizarre as it is perverse," the Mirror quoted a source as saying.

Experts have said ISIS is targeting women for recruitment, and fighters are being urged to marry British and European women.

ISIS, have been on a rampage across Iraq, killing and enslaving members of the country’s ancient religious minorities, including Assyrian Christians and the Yazidis.

Last month two U.N. officials issued a joint statement on the "barbaric acts" of sexual violence committed by ISIS fighters.

"We condemn, in the strongest terms, the explicit targeting of women and children and the barbaric acts the 'Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant' has perpetrated on minorities in areas under its control, and we remind all armed groups that acts of sexual violence are grave human rights violations that can be considered as war crimes and crimes against humanity," said Nickolay Mladenov, special representative of the U.N. secretary-general for Iraq, and Zainab Hawa Bangura, special representative of the secretary-general on sexual violence in conflict.

The U.N. officials’ statement cited evidence of rape being used as weapons of war against women and teenage boys and girls belonging to the Yazidi, Christian, Turkomen and Shabak communities in Iraq.

Academic and Middle East expert Haleh Esfandiari has blogged for the Wall Street Journal that ISIS offers captured girls and women as a "reward" to its followers.

"ISIS has received considerable world attention for its savage beheadings, executions of captured soldiers and men in conquered towns and villages, violence against Christians and Shiites, and the destruction of non-Sunni shrines and places of worship," she said.

"But its barbarity against women has been treated as a side issue. Arab and Muslim governments, vocal on the threat ISIS poses to regional stability, have been virtually silent on ISIS’s systemic degradation, abuse, and humiliation of women.”

"To the men of ISIS, women are an inferior race, to be enjoyed for sex and be discarded, or to be sold off as slaves.”

Turkey refuses to host U.S. anti-ISIS forces

The decision echoes the country’s refusal to allow the U.S. to station 60,000 troops in Turkey in 2003 to invade Iraq from the north. (Shutterstock)

Text size A A A

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/09/11/Turkey-refuses-U-S-permission-for-combat-missions-against-ISIS-.html

AFP, Ankara
Thursday, 11 September 2014

Turkey will refuse to allow a U.S.-led coalition to attack jihadists in neighboring Iraq and Syria from its air bases, nor will it take part in combat operations against militants, a government official told AFP Thursday.

“Turkey will not be involved in any armed operation but will entirely concentrate on humanitarian operations,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

The decision echoes the country’s refusal to allow the U.S. to station 60,000 troops in Turkey in 2003 to invade Iraq from the north, which triggered a crisis between the two allies.

Ankara then also refused Washington permission to use its air bases to attack Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Turkey has come under fire by some critics for indirectly encouraging the formation of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) because of its support of Islamist opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and its loose control of its borders.

But Ankara vehemently denies its strategy has backfired.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was to hold talks in Saudi Arabia on Thursday to drum up support from 10 key Arab nations and Turkey, after President Barack Obama announced Washington’s new strategy against Islamic State jihadists, which will include air strikes in Syria.

Lightning advance

After a lightning advance, ISIS militants now control swathes of Iraq and much of northern Syria along the Turkish border.

Turkey now sees itself a victim of ISIS with Islamist militants holding 49 Turks hostage, including diplomats and children, abducted from the Turkish consulate in Mosul in Iraq on June 11.

Ankara is therefore reluctant to take a stronger role in the coalition against ISIS militants in apparent fear of aggravating the hostage situation.

“Our hands and arms are tied because of the hostages,” the official told AFP.

Turkey can open Incirlik Air Base in the south for logistical and humanitarian operations in any U.S.-led operation, according to the official who stressed that the base would not be used for lethal air strikes.

“Turkey will not take part in any combat mission, nor supply weapons,” he said.

Turkey is the only Muslim country in a coalition of 10 countries who agreed to fight ISIS at the NATO summit in Newport.

Kerry is due to stop over in Turkey on Friday according to the official, although the U.S. embassy in Ankara declined to confirm the visit that comes as part of a regional tour.

Last Update: Thursday, 11 September 2014 KSA 20:56 - GMT 17:56

T.O. council hears complaints of noise Ventura County Star mcDonald's Ave Los Arboles

T.O. council hears complaints of noise

Ventura County Star (CA) - Thursday, September 11, 2014

Readability: >12 grade level (Lexile: 1370L)
Author: Rachel McGrath Special to The Star

For more than three hours this week, Thousand Oaks City Council members heard testimony about noise and disturbance issues reportedly plaguing residents living near the Oakbrook Plaza shopping center.

Specifically, residents spoke about a McDonald’s restaurant and drive-thru in the neighborhood.

Frank Millar, who lives on Shady Brook Drive, had appealed a Thousand Oaks Planning Commission decision to allow Simi Valley resident Debbie Voss, the franchisee operating the McDonald’s at 1908 E. Avenida de Los Arboles, to continue to operate extended drive-thru hours.

At Tuesday night’s public hearing at City Hall, city staff members recommended that the council deny the appeal and uphold the commission’s approval.

As the clock ticked toward 11 p.m. at the hearing, Mayor Andy Fox suggested that the item be continued so all parties could work on a compromise that would address neighbors’ concerns and give Voss a chance to make changes that might mitigate noise from the drive-thru.

Fox said the discussions showed that there was a problem with code compliance at the shopping center. He requested that the city manager, city staff members and police address the issues.

The motion was approved unanimously, 5-0.

Voss bought the restaurant, previously a Burger King, two years ago. Although the permit allowed operations only from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., she has been operating the drive-thru from 5 a.m. to 1 a.m. six days a week.

When city officials told her in February about the violation of the existing special-use permit, Voss filed an application to allow the extended hours. The commission approved the application 4-0 in June.

“It was an honest mistake,” Voss told the

See COUNCIL, 2B

council. “There are three businesses that open as early as 5 a.m. and as late as 1 a.m. when I opened my restaurant.

“I was not aware I was in violation of the hours. About 80 percent of McDonald’s restaurants operate the hours that I do.”

Voss said mature trees, four lanes of a busy street, a median and a concrete wall separate her restaurant from the homes on Shady Brook Drive.

Seventy percent of her business comes from the drive-thru Friday and Saturday nights, she said.

Millar told the council Tuesday that some of his neighbors and he have documented the noise from the drive-thru at night, saying some homeowners could hear the drive-thru speaker, while others have been disturbed by idling truck engines, noisy mufflers and late-night revelers.

He also cited deliveries and landscape maintenance that took place outside permitted hours.

At the shopping center, built in 1979, operating hours of several businesses gradually have extended into early morning and late night over the years.

The McDonald’s sits between a state Department of Motor Vehicles office and a Taco Bell restaurant and drive-thru.

City staff members acknowledged that the Taco Bell and a Starbucks in the shopping center operate longer hours than their permits allow. Starbucks has an application set to come before the commission to allow it to continue to open at 5 a.m.

Camarillo halts large housing plan Ventura County Star Conejo Creek dead!! Whoopee

Camarillo halts large housing plan

Ventura County Star (CA) - Thursday, September 11, 2014

Author: Mike Harris mharris@vcstar.com 805-437-0323

The Camarillo City Council on Wednesday night killed the proposed massive Conejo Creek development.

At the end of a 2½-hour hearing, the council voted unanimously to rescind a general plan amendment that would have rezoned the proposed site from agricultural to commercial/industrial/residential.

“If the general plan amendment referral is stopped, there cannot be a project approval,” city attorney Brian Pierik advised the council before its vote.

The vote came after numerous residents who packed City Hall urged the council not to let the project go forward.

Echoing residents’ concerns, council members said the development would have unavoidable significant environmental impacts that would degrade the quality of life in the city, including increased traffic congestion and the loss of 648 acres of farmland.

“I’ve seen enough to convince me that this project should not go forward,” Councilman Mike Morgan said.

Said Councilwoman Jan McDonald: “Time to pull the plug.”

Development Planning Services had proposed the project on an 895-acre site near the bottom of the Conejo Grade at U.S. Highway 101 and Pleasant Valley Road. It would have allowed 2,500 housing units, 218 acres of recreational and open space, 17 acres of institutional uses, 100 acres of industrial space and 54 acres of business space.

“Just say no,” longtime Camarillo resident Mel Johnson said. “The cons to this proposed development are overwhelming and even staggering. The pros are minimal to nonexistent.”

Camille Crawford implored officials to kill the plan, “not just temporarily, not just to be put on the back burner, not ‘just for now,’ and definitely not a scaled-down version of the project, but voted down permanently, now and forever more. The people have spoken.”

Dennis Hardgrave of Development Planning Services had argued that the project would benefit Camarillo, bringing the area needed housing.

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Ed ison predicts critical changes Ventura County Star Ted Craver CEO

Ed ison predicts critical changes

Ventura County Star (CA) - Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Author: Rachel McGrath Special to The Star

The chairman and CEO of Edison International, Ted Craver, says the electricity industry is set to undergo major changes in the next decade as utilities seek to increase efficiency, environmental friendliness and reliability.

“It’s going to change more in the next 10 years than it has in the last 100 years,” Craver told a packed breakfast event Tuesday at the Ronald W. Reagan Presidential Library & Museum in Simi Valley.

“The ability to develop innovative approaches will be one of the characteristics of successful companies,” he said.

Craver was the first speaker in the 2014-15 Corporate Leaders Breakfast Series hosted by California Lutheran University, with business and community leaders from across Ventura County gathering Tuesday to hear his speech, “Our Energy Future.”

Edison International, based in Rosemead, is the parent company of Southern California Edison.

“Electricity is a commodity that cannot be stored, and that’s fundamental,” Craver told the audience.

“Every time a light switch goes on, the supply of electricity has to instantaneously arrive for that switch to turn on that light, so instantaneously we have to balance the amount of electricity that is demanded with the amount of electricity supplied, and that’s challenging.”

The biggest task facing Southern California Edison is the pressure to act in a more environmentally responsible way

See Leaders, 11A

while maintaining a safe, reliable and cost-effective electricity supply.

“Politics of today have, I think, dramatized the choice around affordability and environmental responsibility. This is a difficult area, and it’s going to continue to be hotly debated,” Craver said.

“Environmental activists, at least the ones on the extreme, want to characterize the choices as: We must use half as much electricity as we used to use, otherwise we will destroy the planet. On the other side of the equation, the pro-growth activists view it as: If we do these things that are environmentally responsible, we are going to double the cost of electricity in the United States.”

Craver said he thinks both sides are basically engaged in fear mongering.

He said companies like Southern California Edison must figure out how to provide electricity responsibly without choking off growth and job creation.

“Electricity is the foundation of all economic growth, so we need to be able to provide it affordably, and that is the fundamental thing that we at Southern California Edison and the other utilities across the country are involved in,” he said.

He described four key focus areas for his utility:

Improving efficiency.

Increasing the use of renewable energy sources.

Improving the emissions profile of its plants.

Bringing the generation of electricity closer to those who use it.

These goals will be achieved by digital technology and innovation, he said, and create a “plug and play” network that connects homes and businesses with a two-way flow of electricity, sharing electricity back and forth in a dynamic dispatch grid.

“What we believe is that the state of California has put reducing carbon and environmental responsibility at the top. They want an electric system that is modern and one that will be environmentally responsible and allow California to stand at the front in terms of carbon reduction and greenhouse gas reduction,” Craver said.

“So our role is to help our customers and policymakers understand the trade-offs that are involved, and once they understand those trade-offs, our job is to go out and build the system that will meet those objectives. That’s really our mission today.”

Leaders from 10A

Caption: DAVID YAMAMOTO/SPECIAL TO THE STAR Ted Craver, chairman and CEO of Edison International, describes the balancing act between mitigating environmental impacts and creating efficient and cost-effective energy during Tuesday’s launch of the 2014-15 California Lutheran University Corporate Leaders Breakfast Series. DAVID YAMAMOTO/SPECIAL TO THE STAR Edison International chief Ted Craver meets with Dennis Washburn (right), president of the Santa Monica Mountains Fund, next to Rudy Gonzales from Southern California Edison at Tuesday’s breakfast. DAVID YAMAMOTO/SPECIAL TO THE STAR Edison International chief Ted Craver describes the balancing act between mitigating environmental impact and creating efficient and cost-effective energy during Tuesday’s launch of this year’s Corporate Leaders Breakfast Series. DAVID YAMAMOTO/SPECIAL TO THE STAR Jerry Beckerman from Segue Career Mentors asks Edison International chief Ted Craver Jr. about the possibility of Edison researching energy technology using such natural resources as the tidal power of the oceans.